Recovery of tar acids from ammoniacal liquor and middle oil fraction (170-270 degrees C) of tar produced in the Woodall-Duckham type carboniser of Dankuni Coal Complex (DCC), using non-caking coals, has been investigated. About 99.5% of the phenols contained in ammoniacal liquor can be extracted with isobutyl acetate in five stages of extraction using a feed:solvent ratio of 8:1 (v/v) and the phenols content of the liquor can be reduced from about 6000 to 30 ppm. A comparison of products obtained from tar distillation under laboratory conditions to those under actual plant operation has been made. The optimum yields of the middle oil, under standard laboratory distillation and tar distillation plant, were 27.12% and 22.5%, respectively, on dry tar and the content of the refined tar acids in these oil fractions were found to be 9.35% and 7.6% ton dry tar), respectively. However, in actual plant practice, this level of yield has not been achieved yet, due to loss of substantial quantity of tar acids in processing units. With a view to optimising the yield, various aspects of plant operation and process streams were investigated. The yields of tar acids and the other processing streams of DCC have been compared with those of metallurgical coke plants and variations in composition of tar acids discussed. The dihydric phenols (ca. 16% of tar acids) obtainable from DCC, have been shown to offer an attractive potential. The environmental aspects related to discharge of waste streams have been dealt with.