A Chinese sub-bituminous Shenfu (SF) coal was steam treated under atmospheric pressure and the caking and coking properties of the treated coals were evaluated by caking indexes (G(RI)) and crucible coking characterizations. The results show that steam treatment can obviously increase the G(RI) of coal. When the steam treated coals were used in the coal blends instead of SF raw coal, the micro-strength index (MSI) and particle coke strength after reaction (PSR) of the coke increased, and particle coke reactivity index (PRI) decreased, which are beneficial for metallurgical coke to increase the gas permeability in blast furnace. The quality of the coke obtained from 8% of 200 degrees C steam treated SF coal in coal blends gets to that of the coke obtained from the standard coal blends, in which there was no SF coal addition in the coal blends. The removal of oxygen groups, especially hydroxyl group thus favoring the breakage of the coal macromolecules and allowing the treated coal formation of much more amount of hydrocarbons, may be responsible for the modified results. The mechanism of the steam treatment was proposed based on the elemental analysis, therm gravimetric (TG) and FTIR spectrometer characterizations of the steam treated coal. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.