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 literature citations obtained by a computer search have been examined and a draft of the literature survey report is being edited. Work during this quarter was devoted to finding the cause of low liquid yields. Pulse feeding of coal slurry proved unsatisfactory. Eight shakedown runs were conducted with raw coal in which product was collected for 30 minutes. Procedures for analyzing the collected gas were established for the carbon containing species and hydrogen. Char and liquid determinations were checked by an outside laboratory. The reactor exit line and valve were checked for carbon deposits, and the amount found was not significant. The termination procedure was improved to avoid unknown char loss. Raising the tip of the injection tube to reduce premature heating of the coal slurry produced no improvement of liquid yields. A complete carbon balance showed that the low liquid yields are not the result of undetected losses. Modification of the reactor top allowed insertion of an auxiliary thermocouple to measure the temperature of the upper surface of the bed. During slurry feeding the surface temperature was very low, a result of the evaporation of water supplied with the coal. Since this is the cause of the low liquid yields, the slurry feed system will be replaced by a dry feeder. The selection of such a feeder has been initiated. The characterization of pretreated coal has begun with the elemental analyses of four samples in addition to one of the raw material. 1 fig., 2 tabs.