Abstract
Coal consists of microscopic organic structural units called macerals together with minerals. Each maceral is not only originated from the different structures of plants, but also experienced different biological and thermal processes. Therefore, chemical characteristics of maceral has a lot of information about origin and reactivity of coal. In this study, chemical functional groups of each maceral is studied using attenuated total reflection infrared micro-spectroscopy (µATR-IR) imaging. Images of chemical functional groups in coal are obtained with a higher spatial resolution (<10µm) than conventional methods.