Abstract: This paper introduces the principles and applications of some common surface analysis techniques for minerals，e.g.SEM，QEMSCAN，FT-IR, Raman，ToF-SIMS and XPS.After illustrating the principles of each technique，some examples have been presented to show the most recent development of these techniques.Specifically，the application of some techniques in hydrometallurgical processing of chalcopyrite have been explained in details.In addition to these techniques used for analysing the surface microtopography and chemical compositions，the applications of synchrotron-based techniques have also been mentioned.It should be noted that both advantages and disadvantages are present for all these techniques.Therefore，suitable analysis techniques should be selected depending on the different surface properties of various minerals.