Supercritical water gasification (SCWG) has attracted great attention for efficient and clean coal conversion recently. A novel kinetic model of non-catalytic partial oxidation of coal in supercritical water (SCW) that describes formation and consumption of gas products (H-2, CO, CH4 and CO2) is reported in this paper. The model comprises 7 reactions, and the reaction rate constants are obtained by fitting the experimental data. Activation energy analysis indicates that steam reforming of fixed carbon (FC) is the rate-determining step for the complete gasification of coal. Once CH4 is produced by pyrolysis of coal, steam reforming of CH4 will be the rate-determining step for directional hydrogen production. (C) 2017 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.