the char a small amount of water from 1 to 15 by weight is recombined with the char along with the dissolved or dispersed hydrocarbons the char enters the rehydrating stage at approximately 170 u00b0 f or lower and thus neither the water nor the hydrocarbons will be flashed to a vapor in this stage the solid exits from the rehydrating stage as a stable solid fuel preferably at 100 u00b0 f or less and having approximately 4 to 7 percent moisture and a heating value of 12 000 btu per pound at the preferred moisture content there will be no surface moisture so the rehydrated char is treated with a dust suppression agent after the rehydration step referring to table i below example 1 shows the pilot plant results that duplicate the pyrolysis step as seen from the data the process water from this step contains approximately 2700 ppm of organic carbon and 1040 ppm of phenolics the data in example 2 simulates the rehydrating step wherein the waste water is recombined with the dried char from the pyrolysis step the char is heated and a certain amount of condensate water is collected it is seen that the condensate water has only 5 ppm of total organic.