In China, more than 2.65 million coal mine workers are exposed to coal dust. Every year, new pneumoconiosis cases amount to 25,000, among which 6000 cases die of this disease. The figure is twice the death toll in production safety accidents. Occupational diseases seriously endanger life and health of coal mine workers, and restrict the healthy growth of the coal industry. The paper presented a study of foam-sol-based coal dust control. This was an experimental study of characteristics of foam-sol-based coal dust control, which features dust capture, suppression, and isolation. Comparative wettability experiments were carried out to determine contact angles of water, aqueous foam, and foam-sol solution. A new foam-sol generating system with a conical diffuser outlet was proposed. The experiment results clearly showed that the foam-sol features dust capture, suppression, and isolation. The wettability of the aqueous foam solution was better than the foam-sol solution, but the foam-sol technology had the better ability to capture the airborne dust, suppress the static dust and enclose the dust source, due to the excellent surface viscosity, strong cohesiveness and less volatile property. The paper concluded that the foam-sol could greatly improve the dust control efficiency and did not have main deficiencies that the aqueous foam technology had. (C) 2013 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.