The research and development situation of liquid nitrogen coil-wound heat exchanger were discussed in view of heat exchange in gas purification field in petrol-chemical industry. The basic designing methods and the multi-stream heat exchange process were illustrated by the cryogenic and high pressure crossing heat exchange equipments of liquid nitrogen coil-wound heat exchanger with multi-stream and multiphase flow, including Three-stream back-cooling heat exchangerin first stage, Four-stream back-cooling heat exchangerin second stage, Five-stream back-cooling heat exchangerin third stage, Multi-stream main back-coolingcoil-wound heat exchanger etc. A series of coil-wound heat exchangers with different mixed fluids and different applications were described. The winding structure characteristics and the work principles of the spiral pipe bundles were elaborated to give references for the scientific design and calculation of coil-wound heat exchanger in cryogenic field. The important research directions and the critical scientific problems were forecasted.