Abstract: Pyridine was used as a model compound to study on the formation mechanism of HCN and NH_3 from coal-N. Some experiments were carried out in a tubular quartz reactor at the temperature of 600-1 300 ℃, and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC/MS) was used to measure the liquid products from experiments. Some useful results and conclusions were acquired as following: 2,4-pentadlenenitrile could be detected in the samples of pyridine experiments; and the 2-methoxy-pyridine can be detected in the sample of pyridine gasification. All of the results seemly reveal that HCN comes from the thermal cracking of pyridine and NH_3 is the product of the hydrolyzation of nitrile.