[en] Work performed by the Special Research Unit 163 to supplement industrial development projects in the subject field was devoted to specific problems. The major goal was to analyse available industrial developments for potential improvements in terms of process design and engineering in line with the latest know-how, in order to enhance the economic efficiency of available techniques and methods. So research into coal gasification by nuclear processes concentrated on the potentials of a method allowing significantly higher gasification temperatures due to the use of a so-called high-temperature heat pump operating on the basis of the gas turbine principle. Exergetic analyses were made for the processes using nuclear heat in order to optimise their energy consumption. Major steps in these processes are gas purification and gas separation. Especially for the latter step, novel techniques were studied and tested on lab scale, results being used for development towards technical scale application. One novel technique is a method for separating hydrogen from methane and carbon monoxide by means of a gas turbine process step, another research task resulted in a novel absorption technique in the liquid phase. Further, alternative solutions were studied which, other than the conventional gasification processes, comprise electrochemical and other chemical process steps. The important research topic concerned with the kinetics of coal gasification was made part of a special research program on the level of fundamental research. (orig./GL)