All life processes are associated with heat effect. Microcalorimetry can sensitively track this heat effect and quantitatively characterize life processes. Though microcalorimetry has been extensively and intensively applied in medical and biochemical researching fields, it is hardly used in soil microbiology research yet. This article briefly introduced the principle and the protocol of microcalorimetry, reviewd advances in its application and prospects its development in soil microbiology research, in order to provide new technique and idea for soil microbiology research.