Rich and ultrarich combustion of natural gas in a porous medium composed of aleatory coal particles and alumina spheres was studied experimentally to evaluate the suitability of the concept for hydrogen and syngas production. Temperature, velocity and chemical products of the combustion waves were recorded experimentally in two stages: (1) natural gas in an inert porous medium at filtration velocities of 12, 15 and 19 cm/s for equivalence ratios (phi) from phi = 1.0 to phi = 3.8; (2) natural gas in a porous medium composed of coal and alumina particles for a range of volume coal fractions from 0 to 75% at phi = 2.3, and a filtration velocity of 15 cm/s. It was observed that the flame temperatures and hydrogen yields were increased with the increase of filtration velocity in inert porous media. In hybrid porous media the flame temperature decreased with an increase of coal fraction, and hydrogen and carbon monoxide were dominant partial oxidation products. Syngas yield in hybrid filtration combustion was found to be essentially higher than for the inert porous medium case. The maximum hydrogen conversion for the hybrid coal and alumina bed was similar to 55% for a volumetric coal content of 75%. Copyright (C) 2012, Hydrogen Energy Publications, LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.