Abstract: Summarized the current status of the application of the spiral separator and analyzed the problems existing in the application on the coal spiral separator; Summed up the research status of the optimization of the spiral separator, proposed the direction of the optimization for the coal spiral separator. The results show that compared to the non-coal spiral separators, the spiral with lower pitch and more turns may benefit to the separation; The coal spiral also have some problems such as higher cut densities and lower containment for the moment; Changing the structural parameters and introducing the external force were two mainly ways of equipment optimization. The former can be the primary method for the reason that it can retain the features with structure and no power components as far as possible.