The incompleteness of our knowledge of the factors determining the behavior of coal during its combustion or gasification is continually being emphasized, e.g., [1]. One of the major reasons remains the lack of reliable experimental data on the combustion of a single coal particle. A number of methods have been used in previous investigations [2,3]. These experimental techniques are not always adequate, particularly for measurements of the initial, low-temperature reactions of coal. The purpose of this letter is to describe a novel infrared technique. The use of infrared radiation extends the observation over the entire course of the combustion process. The apparatus is shown in Fig. 1, details having been given previously [4]. The essential difference is in the method of observing the reacting particle. (Previously we used photopyrometry [5] and sometimes a bichromatic pyrometer [61 which works in a similar way to instruments used by other authors, e.g., [7,8].) Recording of the combustion using infrared radiation had been used before and special equipment developed, e.g., [9]. In our investigation the technique is substantially simplified by the use of a standard thermovision system AGA 680 [10] which records total radiation between two wavelengths: 2-5,6 laSh;the minimum size of the observed object (in our case the diameter of a coal particle) is about 350 #m. We applied the thermal profile method which produces on the screen of the thermovision system a plot of :r