The design concept of an entrained bed gasifier is presented. A 3 t/d-scale gasification system was constructed based on this concept. Syngas residence time in the gasifier was set to 2 s, relatively shorter than that of commercial gasifiers, to verify the possibility of complete gasification reaction within a short residence time. A series of gasification tests were conducted under high pressures and high temperatures. Performance data of the gasification experiment using multiple swirl burners showed that the carbon conversion and cold gas efficiency were higher than 98% and 72%, respectively. This high performance seemed to be attributable to the effects of rigorous mixing of oxygen and pulverized coal by the strong swirl flow and the relatively uniform oxygen concentration by the swirling plug flow. Syngas composition of the experimental result well agreed with that of the equilibrium state. This project demonstrated the feasibility of complete gasification reaction within a short residence time for low-rank coal of high reactivity. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.