Coal resource is abundant in China, while the reserves of natural gas and petroleum are limited. Due to the rapid increase in the number of automobiles, a competitive way to produce liquid fuels from coal is urgently needed in China. A so-called "coal topping process" is under development at the Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, from which liquid products can be obtained by flash pyrolysis in an integrated circulating fluidized bed system. In order to achieve a high yield of liquid products from high volatile coal, controlling the residence time of coal particles and produced gas may be of importance for minimizing the degree of the secondary reactions; i.e., polymerization and cracking of the liquid products. Experiments of the flash pyrolysis of coal have been conducted in an entrained bed reactor which is especially designed to study the influence of the coal particle residence time on the product distribution. The results show that the gaseous, liquid, and solid product distribution, the gas compositions as well as the liquid compositions depend strongly on the gas and particle residence time.