Pretreatment of coal in steam is being explored with the goal of improving the economic attractiveness of coal gasification by cogeneration of light liquid fuels. The final draft of a literature survey has been completed and issued. Reactor performance was examined in a series of extended runs using the coal feeder installed during the last quarter. Char deposits found on the reactor wall showed that coal was not being transported to the trap. Two internal modifications were then made to the reactor and tested in succession. The second of these, which employed a longer water cooled feed tube and an increased flow of helium through the feeder, was successful. A modified collection system was installed to condense and capture liquids from the inert gas stream. In order to trap low molecular weight liquids, a silica gel adsorber was added after the filter. More liquids are produced at lower pyrolysis temperatures, and two additional equipment modifications were required to accommodate these liquids. The cooling tube was replaced by one of larger diameter to avoid intermittent plugging by condensed liquids, and a quartz wool filter of higher capacity was added ahead of the one initially used. Thirty runs were made with both raw and pretreated coal. Diffuse reflectance infrared spectroscopy was used to analyze pretreated coal. Samples pretreated at several different temperatures were compared to raw coal and raw coal dried under vacuum at 90/sup 0/C. In the region attributed to carbonyl bonds, all spectra appeared identical. In the region attributed to hydroxyl groups, however, there was a shift in the ratio of chemisorbed to physisorbed hydroxyl species. Pretreated coal contains less physisorbed hydroxyl. This finding indicates that hydrogen bonding is reduced by pretreatment. 6 figs., 2 tabs.