According to the necessary conditions and the development process of coal spontaneous combustion, the tendency of coal spontaneous combustion was determined by flow chromatography oxygen absorption method. The main influencing factors, the granularity of coal, the stability of and air tightness of the instrument, sample processing, flow rate of carrier gas, on coal spontaneous combustion tendency in the determination were analyzed, and the relationship between some parameters including water, ash, volatiles, total sulfur and density and oxygen adsorption was discussed. It is put forward that exploring the coal spontaneous combustion tendency and the influencing factors in the determination of coal spontaneous combustion, and improving the accuracy of the test results have a great significance for  safe mining,transport and storage of coal.