The conversion of coal-derived liquids to transportation fuels has been the subject of many studies sponsored by the US Department of Energy and the US Department of Defense. For the most part, these studies evaluated conventional petroleum processes for the production of specification-grade fuels. Recently, however, the interest of these two departments expanded to include the evaluation of alternate fossil fuels as a feedstock for the production of high-density aviation turbine fuel. In this study, we evaluated five processes for their ability to produce intermediates from a coal-derived liquid for the production of high-density turbine fuel. These processes include acid-base extraction to reduce the heteroatom content of the middle distillate and the atmospheric and vacuum gas oils, solvent dewaxing to reduce the paraffin (alkane) content of the atmospheric and vacuum gas oils, Attapulgus clay treatment to reduce the heteroatom content of the middle distillate, coking to reduce the distillate range of the vacuum gas oil, and hydrogenation to remove heteroatoms and to saturate aromatic rings in the middle distillate and atmospheric gas oil. The chemical and physical properties that the US Air Force considers critical for the development of high-denisty aviation turbine fuel are specific gravity and net heat of combustion. The target minimum values for these properties are a specific gravity of at least 0.85 and a net heat of combustion of at least 130,000 Btu/gal. In addition, the minimum hydrogen content is 13.0 wt %, the maximum freeze point is {minus}53{degrees}F ({minus}47{degrees}C), the maximum amount of aromatics is about 25 to 30 vol %, and the maximum amount of paraffins is 10 vol %. 13 refs., 20 tabs.