The direct use of coal for power generation may cause pollution from the generation of fly ash and toxic mineral matter contents and due to the green house house effect, if not controlled. There is a need to further develop efficient and cost- effective techniques of coal cleaning. However,it is important to analyse the coal mineral matter directly to understand its chemical nature. The nature of bonding and association been organic matter;of coal and various constituents of mineral matter may be understood. The state of aggregation of mineral matter and the studies of associative forces between mineral matter components might help in developing reagents to clean coal. Swelling behaviour of coal and its effect on dissociation of mineral matter may be studied. A real break- though in the development of efficient and cost- effective coal cleaning technologies may be expected only after studying the nature of mineral matter constituents of coal and their interaction with coal swelling reagents when present in microquantities in water, CO2 etc. medium.