An in-depth investigation and accurate analysis of the blast furnace injection fuel explosion characteristics is important since it is a crucial factor affecting ironmaking safety, cost reduction, and rational use of coal resources. This current study investigated explosion characteristics, morphology, pore distributions, and carbon structure of modified coal. The results showed that although the volatile matter content of modified coal was similar to the anthracite coal, the explosiveness of the modified coal was stronger than the high-volatile raw coal and the bituminous coal at various oxygen concentrations. The specific surface area of modified coal was 271.5 m(2)/g and pores were well developed. This provided good kinetic conditions for oxygen molecules to diffuse into the particle's surface and interior. The lower graphitized carbon structure of modified coal had high carbon reactivity, which improved the explosion performance. The strong explosiveness of the modified coal was not attributed to the cracking and the combustion of volatile matter. The I-D/I-G value (the intensity ratio of the D band and G band) was considered an important factor for evaluating the explosion characteristics of the samples. (C) 2019 Published by Elsevier B.V.