The key research findings included in this thesis entails independent experiments carried out to solve critical bottle-necking issues associated with the Type I and Type II based chemical looping process for clean coal utilization developed at the Ohio State University (OSU). The Type I chemical looping system represents a process involving high-temperature cyclic redox reactions in two or more reactors, such that the process configuration leads to the production of a high purity CO2 stream from a carbonaceous fuel source, such as coal, natural gas, or biomass. For instance, the coal direction chemical looping (CDCL) process is one example of such process that is capable of generating electricity from coal or producing hydrogen from coal without a dedicated gasifier. The results outlined in Chapter 2-4 present the development of a novel strategy that enables the utilization of caking bituminous coal, accounting for nearly 50% of the coal production in the U.S., as a feedstock to the CDCL process. The proposed pretreatment method utilizes iron oxide (Fe2O3), which is inherently present in the process as the oxygen carrier and is readily available from the process waste stream, as a catalyst to promote the decaking of thermoplastic bituminous coal. The relevant caking properties, reaction pathway, decaking mechanism relating to the thermoplastic behavior of bituminous coal is described. Furthermore, an empirical correlation between the decaking parameters and the swelling potential is presented. The Type II chemical looping system represents a process involving the high-temperature cyclic carbonation-calcination reactions, such that removal of flue gas CO2 is achieved by the chemisorption reaction with a metal oxide to form carbonate species. Specifically, the calcium-based Type II chemical looping process at OSU utilizes an inexpensive limestone based sorbent to capture flue gas CO2. The critical challenge in this process exists in the rapid decay in sorbent reactivity over multiple reaction cycles due to thermal sintering. The work described in Chapter 5-6 presents an improved process design that incorporates a steam reactivation step to counter the decay in sorbent reactivity. A novel mechanically agitated fluidized bed design is proposed to enable gas-solid steam reactivation reaction under a well-controlled fluidization regime. A detailed parametric study on the influence of the operation conditions, i.e. temperature, pressure, fluidization velocity, on the extent of sorbent reactivation is presented. Furthermore, the effect of sorbent sintering on the kinetic limitations of steam reactivation reaction is investigated. Kinetic modeling of the experimental data reveals important differences in the rate-limiting mechanism relevant for the heterogeneous gas-solid steam hydration and carbonation reactions.