Abstract: As a high performance powder material,hollow glass microspheres have a very good application prospect in cryogenic insulation for its special hollow spherical structure. The research on cryogenic thermal performance comparison between hollow glass microspheres and aerogel beads,perlite powder,vacuum multi-layer insulation material and vacuum only was summarized in this paper. Research on cryogenic thermal performance of coated microspheres and the performance of the bubbles itself was also summarized in this paper. What's more,the application of microsphere insulation system on cryogenic tanks of 1 000 L,22 700 L and 218 000 L was briefly introduced.