A collaborative effort among Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech), Northeastern University, the University of Delaware, and Utah State University will provide research and development of catalysts to improve operation of coal gasifiers. The work involves experiments, kinetic modeling, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) that will address and make recommendations for advanced catalytic gasification of coal and coal-biomass mixtures. The novel approach of this project will be the use of red mud catalyst with sub-bituminous coal to effectively gasify coal and produce a cleaner syngas with elevated levels of hydrogen without the negative by-products of methane, sulfur compounds, and chlorine. The outcome of this work will be the characterization of the chemical kinetics and reaction mechanisms and the development of a set of models that can be integrated into MFIX, OpenFOAM and other CFD modeling environments. Most importantly, this work will demonstrate advancements in catalytic gasification of low-rank coal that will promote optimum syngas composition for polygeneration of electricity and other fuels or chemicals.