The applicability of hydrated coal burnt ashes as dry gas sorbents for enhanced HCl removal was experimentally studied. In this work, three kinds of coal burnt ash discharged from fluidized bed coal combustion were hydrated with deionized water and with solutions of alcohols such as methanol, ethanol, diethylene glycol, propylene glycol and glycerin at 273 to 353 K. The hydrated sorbent (44 63 m) was tested for HCl removal in a fixed bed reactor under simulated conditions of flue gas capture for a municipal waste incinerator (473 K, 1,000 ppmv HCl). It was found that the improvement of HCl sorption was large with higher CaO content in the hydrated coal burnt ash. The increase in the HCl sorption capacity of coal burnt ash increased with hydration temperature. Maximum HCl sorption as obtained with hydration using glycerin. XRD results showed the generation of Ca(OH)(2) with higher crystallinity after hydration. Hydration of coal ash caused remarkable increase in surface area of pore, between 0.001 mum and 0.01 mum, which played a significant role in high HCl sorption.