Increasing the amount of the hydrogen acceptor added to a nonpolar swelling solvent increases the swelling of the coal. Plotting swelling against pyridine concentration results to a titration curve which estimates the number of hydrogen bond crosslinks in the coal. The selectivity of the acceptor for crosslinking hydroxyls is due to the more favorable entropy change when one of these crosslinks is disrupted by a formation of a new H-bond to pyridine, which frees a portion of the coals leading to more favorable conformations.