Abstract: Objective Titanium is a kind of metal with important strategic significance, and rutile is the main and most valuable titanium-bearing mineral. However, rutile has poor natural floatability, and is usually associated with many metals and doped with many gangue minerals, which makes the separation process complicated. Exploring the mechanism of flotation collector and developing high efficiency collectors have become the focus of rutile flotation research. Method This article introduces the principle of rutile flotation and the types of collectors, summarizes the adsorption mechanism of rutile flotation collector on mineral surface and the synergistic effect of composite collectors, Result&Conclusion summarizes and compares the advantages and disadvantages of different flotation agents, and analyzes the development direction of rutile collector theory research.