This project was concerned with characterizing the changes in coal macromolecular structure, that are of significance for liquefaction pretreatments of coal. The macromolecular structure of the insoluble portion of coal is difficult to characterize. Techniques that do so indirectly (based upon, for example, NMR and FTIR characterizations of atomic linkages) are not particularly sensitive for this purpose. Techniques that characterize the elastic structure (such as solvent swelling) are much more sensitive to subtle changes in the network structure. It is for this reason that we focused upon these techniques. The overall objective involved identifying pretreatments that reduce the crosslinking (physical or chemical) of the network structure, and thus lead to materials that can be handled to a greater extent by traditional liquid-phase processing techniques. These techniques tend to be inherently more efficient at producing desirable products. This report is divided into seven chapters. Chapter II summarizes the main experimental approaches used throughout the project, and summarizes the main findings on the Argonne Premium coal samples. Chapter III considers synergistic effects of solvent pairs. It is divided into two subsections. The first is concerned with mixtures of CS{sub 2} with electron donor solvents. The second subsection is concerned with aromatic hydrocarbonmore » - alcohol or hydrocarbon - alcohol mixtures, as might be of interest for preliquefaction delivery of catalysts into bituminous coals. Chapter IV deals with questions of how oxidation might influence the results that are obtained. Chapter V briefly details what conclusions may be drawn concerning the elastic behavior of coals, and the effects of thermal treatments on this behavior. Chapter VI is concerned with theories to describe the action of solvents that are capable of dissociating non-covalent crosslinks. Finally, Chapter VII discusses the practical implications of the study.« less