At present explosives such as trinitrotoluene(TNT) was widely applied in industry and military.However,trinitrotoluene was a class of high toxic carcinogenic material.It would endanger people's health if this kind of explosives material penetrated from soil into groundwater.The detection methods for characterization trace explosives included the following items such as chromatography and mass spectrometry,colorimetric,fluorescence quenching,electrochemical assay,surface Plasmon resonance and other methods.Rrecent progress in the detection of trace explosive was reviewed such as trinitrotoluene.The principles and application perspectives were also explained in detail.