Abstract: Abstract：Flotation is one of the most effective methods in seperation of fine minerals particals. The correct way to choose regents in flotation is the key step to improve flotation proformance and reinforce the process of concentration recovery. In this study, non-inoic surfactant TX-100 whose characters would be investigate in flotation was selected duing the process of low rank coal flotation. The increasing ultimate combustible recovery values of low rank coal which were treated with a gradual increase in concentration of TX-100 (0 g/t, 50 g/t, 100 g/t, 150 g/t, 200 g/t) from 54.42% to 89.43% demostrated that flotation performance of low rank coal acquired improvement. Besides, contact angle and wetting heat measurements were employed to analyse coal samples treated by different concentrations of TX-100, the increase of contact angle by 13.7°and decrease of wetting heat by 8.031 J/g revealed that the hydrophobic of low rank coal improved effectively which brought about good results on flotation of low rank coal. The changes in surface property of low rank coal before and after treatment were observed through XPS and FTIR measurements in order to investigate the microscopic mechanism of TX-100 on the outstanding improvement of flotation performance, it can be found that the content of carboxyl grouphydroxyl (－COOH) and hydroxyl (－OH) belonged to the hydrophilic groups decreased with the addition of TX-100.