Abstract: Coal spontaneous combustion is a major hidden danger in coal mine safety production, and the traditional coal spontaneous combustion inhibition material has the problems of single principle, complex preparation process and high cost. In view of the existing problems, we use sodium carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC), citric acid and sodium secondary alkyl sulfonate (H95) as raw materials to prepare a new type of gel inhibitor material that can simultaneously play two roles of physical barrier and chemical inhibition in the process of coal oxidation by reasonable ratio. The chemical structure of the new material before and after preparation was characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The inhibition performance of the new material was analyzed by testing its viscosity, wettability and water retention, and the inhibitory effect of the new material on coal oxidation was evaluated by temperature programmed experiments and thermogravimetric analysis experiments. The results showed that in the prepared new materials, CMC and citric acid produced chemical crosslinking and hydrogen bonding, which proved that the gel was successfully compounded with chemical inhibitors. When the mass fraction of CMC was 2%, the viscosity of the new material and pure CMC gel reached 1.12 Pa·s and 3.83 Pa·s, respectively. At this time, the solution state of the new material is most suitable for spraying; the maximum wetting heights of the new material, mass fraction 2% pure CMC gel and deionized water on pulverized coal were 12.5 mm, 10.3 mm and 9.9 mm, respectively. The water loss rates of the three materials after vacuum drying for 10 h were 87.06%, 82.71% and 97.61%, respectively. Compared with raw coal and citric acid treated coal, the cross point temperature of coal samples treated with new materials increased by 5.5 °C and 2.1 °C respectively. When the oxidation temperature reaches 180 °C, the CO gas volume fraction, oxygen consumption rate and exothermic intensity are reduced by 50.57%, 69.5% and 59.5% respectively compared with raw coal, and reduced by 33.1%, 45.1% and 28.3% respectively compared with citric acid treated coal. The five oxidation characteristic temperature points of coal samples treated with new materials in thermogravimetric analysis experiment are significantly lower than those of raw coal and citric acid treated coal, and the spontaneous combustion tendency is weaker than that of the other two groups of coal samples. This study verifies the feasibility of new materials to inhibit coal spontaneous combustion, and puts forward the application of new materials to the underground atomization spraying process.