Currently, the prevention and control of coal spontaneous combustion (CSC) mainly depend on liquid or inert gas injection. In this study, the mixed sol solution was prepared with methylcellulose (MC), polyethylene glycol (PEG), and surfactant sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS). It has the advantages of in-situ, nontoxicity, easy biodegradation, etc., and can retain a large amount of water by sol-gel transition. The effect of each component on the gel properties was analyzed by using central composite design (CCD) of response surface methodology (RSM). The optimal values of independent variables were 1.99 wt% MC, 6 wt% PEG, and 8 mM/L SDS, under which the response values were obtained as gelation temperature 70 C, gelation time 75 seconds, gel strength 20.32 kPa, and seepage rate 28.51%. The obtained thermosensitive hydrogel (TSH) was characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The results showed that the hydrogel was formed by physical cross-linking of MC-PEG-SDS ternary system. The gelation temperature of MC increased in the coexistence of SDS and PEG. The