Abstract. This paper presents a dry separation system for thermal coal sorting in which the major grading equipment don't need to water, to avoid the shortage of the traditional wet separation process along with the complex slime water treatment systems, simplifying the process, and reducing the costs, meeting the environments require for the western and northern of China where rich coal but less water. The dry coal preparation system proposed the ideal coal size-grading, 6mm granularity points, for the dry separation system of thermal coal, based on the size requirements, 65 0mm, of dry separation equipment for the efficient separation and the requirements size, <6mm, of the circulating fluidized bed boilers for power generation, to ensure that the system can run efficiently in order to promote the strategy change from transporting coal to transmitting electricity.