A large amount of PM2.5 dust, rich in heavy metals, dioxins and other toxic substances, will be produced during the iron ore sintering process, not only seriously polluting the environment, but also endangering human health. The special strong hydrophobicity on the surface of PM2.5 dust seriously restricts the efficient wet dust removal and hydrometallurgical recovery of valuable elements of this type of dust. In this paper, the elements, phase composition and surface wettability of iron ore sintering dust are analyzed in detail, the wetting law of hydrophobic dust by different types of nonionic surfactants is systematically explored, and the mechanism of efficient wetting of iron ore sintering dust by nonionic surfactants is preliminarily explored by FT-IR and XPS manifestation. The results show that the hydrophobicity of iron ore sintering dust comes from the hydrophobic shell composed of alkane chains and aromatic base on its surface. Using non-ionic surfactant polyethylene glycol octylphenyl ether (Triton X-405) solution has the best wetting effect to moisturize hydrophobic dust. It is preliminarily inferred that the chemical process of the efficient wetting interface is as follows: Triton X-405 adsorbs the hydrophobic shell on the surface of iron ore sintering dust particles through the hydrophobic group in its molecule, and introduces the hydrophilic groups in its molecule such as hydroxyl groups and ether bonds into the dust surface to achieve efficient wetting of strong hydrophobic dust. This research can provide a theoretical basis for dust control and wetting recovery of iron ore sintering dust.