Studies on the steam gasification of washed residual chars (obtained from coal–alkali reaction at 600 ºC) were carried out at 500 ºC and 100 kPa pressure in a fixed bed glass reactor with or without nickel (as nickel nitrate) as catalyst. The results when compared with the corresponding data on coal, revealed that under similar reaction conditions, the coals yielded more gas with higher H2 and CO contents than their corresponding chars. It was concluded that presence of functional groups, especially oxygen containing is a requirement for nickel catalysed steam gasification of coals/lignites. The recovery of nickel achieved was about 80%
