Abstract: In the separation of copper and zinc minerals, the process of preferential flotation of copper minerals by inhibiting zinc minerals is mostly adopted. Therefore, the study of sphalerite inhibitor and its mechanism is of great significance to improve the flotation index of copper-zinc sulphide ores. In this paper, the reasons for the difficulty in flotation separation of copper and zinc minerals were analyzed. The mechanism and application practice of several common inorganic, organic and combined inhibitors were introduced. This article also pointed out that high efficiency, low cost, environmental protection and non-toxic will be the direction of the separation inhibitors between copper and zinc in the future.