In this study, in order to reveal the temperature rising characteristic and mechanism of coal dust, "Godbert-Greenwald" furnace test apparatus was chosen to test the minimum ignition temperature (MIT) of dust/air mixtures. Results show that the MIT was in the range of (560-570) degrees C. Meanwhile, TG/DTG-QMS-FTIR was used to perform real-time and continuous analysis on temperature rising process. Thermal analysis kinetics obtained from TG/DTG shows that the coal dust combustion process consists of two stages low-temperature stage and high-temperature stage. Furthermore, a detailed discussion on the process was also made based on the real-time evolvement of gaseous products, which was detected by QMS-FTIR on a mechanism level. The experimental results show that the main gaseous products evolved from the coal dust combustion are H2O, CO2, H-2, CO and CH4, whereas the higher molecule-weight hydrocarbons (CA) are less. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.