Abstract: The preparation of coal water slurry using coal chemical wastewater has achieved comprehensive utilization of pollutants in wastewater, minimizing the adverse impact of wastewater on the environment. This study selected Xinjiang lignite and prepared coal water slurry using sodium naphthalene sulfonate as a dispersant. Explored the influence mechanism of phenol and ammonia nitrogen in wastewater components on the slurry characteristics of coal water slurry, and explored the interaction forces between particles in the corresponding liquid-phase environment based on atomic force microscopy (AFM). The results showed that the inter-particle force had a good correspondence with the rheology of the slurry, in which: with the increase of phenol concentration, the repulsion force of the AFM particle probe increased and the action distance was shortened during the probe feeding process, while the adhesion and action duration decreased during the probe withdrawal process, indicating that the addition of phenol reduced the thickness of the hydration film and released more free water, which was manifested as a decrease in the apparent viscosity. With the increase of ammonia nitrogen concentration, the AFM particle probe feeding process and the withdrawal process mainly showed the increase of action distance, indicating that the addition of ammonia nitrogen increased the thickness of the hydration film and bound more free water, which showed that the apparent viscosity increased rapidly when the ammonia nitrogen concentration was high enough. In addition, it is found that even when the composition of the liquid phase was different, the distance and the maximum attraction value still had a good monotonic correlation with the apparent viscosity during the needle extraction process, which provides a mechanistic guidance method for in-depth exploration of the regulation of particle surface interface, wastewater environment regulation and the research and development of additives in coal water slurry system.