Preliminary experiments for developing new methodology to characterize the Argonne premium coal samples by using the dielectric property measurement have been carried out. It was found that the dielectric constant showed a clear dependence on oxygen content of coals and frequency, and also very much sensitive to the water contaminant These observations suggest that this methodology is capable to evaluate coal structure involved by non-covalent cross-linking such as hydrogen bonding interaction in macromolecular network.
