Hydrocarbon generation and structural evolution would be occurred in the process of from coal-forming material (i. e. peat sample) transforming to the coal. While Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) have a special advantages in analyzing molecular structure of samples. For understanding the characteristics of hydrocarbon generation and structural evolution of coal-forming material during the process of pyrolysis and microbial degradation, based on the physical simulation experiments of closed pyrolysis and anaerobic microbial degradation, the generation potential of thermogenic gas and biogenic gas were studied in this paper, and characteristics of molecular structure evolution and its mechanism was analyzed by FTIR technology. Results show that cumulative gas yields of hydrocarbon gases (mainly for methane) increased with experiment temperature. The gas yield of non-hydrocarbon gas (mainly for CO2) exhibited two peaks at 250 and 375 degrees C. The degradation ability of anaerobe on coal samples weakened with the maturity increasing and there was no gas generation on the pyrolysis samples with maturity from 1.6% to 1.8%. After pyrolysis, the content of hydroxyl in peat sample decreased first and then increased with the pyrolysis temperature increasing. The content of aldehyde carbonyl, methylene and phosphate reduced. The content of aromatic esters decreased with nonlinear. The bone of S-O in stretching vibration appeared after 350 degrees C and its content increased with temperature. This shows that the sulfocompound restrains the activity of methanogenic bacteria. After degradation by anaerobe, the relative content of hydroxyl, aldehyde carbonyl, aromatic esters, methylene and phosphate in peat sample dropped significantly. It is shown that the intermolecular force between these groups weakened.