Coal is the primary fossil fuel used globally for electricity generation and chemical products for a long time. However, utilization of coal also results in emissions of CO2 and other pollutants. At present, global climate change due to greenhouse gases, especially CO2, is becoming more and more serious. It is necessary to improve the efficiency of coal power generation and achieve nearly zero CO2 emissions.

Integrated gasification fuel cell (IGFC) systems that combine coal gasification and high-temperature fuel cells, such as Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) or Molten Carbonate Fuel Cell (MCFC), are promising technologies because higher power generation efficiency and environmentally friendly is expected that of conventional coal-fired power generation systems.

The goal of the issue is to introduce the progress and prospects of advanced IGFC technology and analyze the efficiency and economic performance of the IGFC plant with CO2 capture. This issue also reviews recent advances in basic research and technological development on the processes of coal gasification and purification technology, SOFC technology and MCFC technology, carbon capture, utilization, and storage technology (CCUS), Solid Oxide Electrolysis Cell (SOEC) technology.

From the perspective of IGFC and IGFC technologies in China (Peng et al. 2021), the development of new technology for coal gasification purification and research on the formation mechanism of pollutants are presented (Zheng et al. 2021). Meanwhile, the effect of alkali metal ions on the formation mechanism of HCN during pyridine pyrolysis is researched (Liu et al. 2021).

The critical fuel cell technology about the performance test on a 5 kW SOFC system under high fuel utility with practical syngas feeding(Xu et al. 2021), the operating parameters of the 10 kW SOFC-CHP system with syngas (Li et al. 2021), and 10 kW molten carbonate fuel cell power generation systems are introduced (Lu et al. 2021). In addition, the fabrication and performance of atmospheric plasma sprayed solid oxide fuel cells with liquid antimony anodes are researched (Jiang et al. 2021).

Based on this, key CO2 capture technology for pure oxygen exhaust gas combustion by syngas-fueled high-temperature fuel cells (Wang et al. 2021) and CO2 utilization technology by SOEC technology (Yang et al. 2021) are discussed.

Finally, the status update of the IGFC power generation system being developed at the National Institute of Clean-and-Low-Carbon (NICE) at the MWth scale is provided (Wei et al. 2021).

All the studies presented in the Special Issue cover both the development of IGFC technologies and the key result of the IGFC project.