Taking the separation of science and technology as the main direction, the laboratory is based on the frontier of disciplines, facing the major needs of national economic and social development, carrying out basic theoretical research, developing key technologies and equipment, and actively promoting the transformation of scientific research results. In the 1960s, under the leadership of Academician Wang Jiading, the laboratory made a historic contribution to the development of China's atomic energy industry in the research of extraction process and equipment for nuclear fuel reprocessing. Since the 1980s, petrochemical industry has been the main battlefield, and the successful application of new extraction technologies and new equipment in industrial processes such as aromatics extraction, lubricating oil refining, and caprolactam separation and purification has won many national and provincial science and technology awards. Significant economic and social benefits have been achieved.

In the 21st century, the laboratory is centered on the scientific research of equilibrium and transfer of multiphase systems, separation equipment and engineering applications, new separation methods media, supercritical extraction, etc. With the purpose of developing high-efficiency liquid-liquid and gas-liquid separation equipment, the modern testing technology and computational fluid dynamics simulation is combined, and the research on multiphase fluid flow and mass transfer performance is carried out, new testing technologies and high-efficiency separating equipment and internal components are developed, mathematical models to provide the basis for industrial applications of high-efficiency equipment is established. It has successively undertaken dozens of funds of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and realized the industrial application of a number of scientific and technological achievements.