Abstract: In order to study the droplet behavior in a sieve plate extraction column, a combination of experimental and simulation methods was applied to investigate the morphology of droplets passing through the sieve plate, and the coalescence-breakage characteristics of the sieve plate by defining coalescence-breakage index. The results show that droplets pass through the sieve holes in different ways under various experimental conditions, including passing through sieve holes directly, passing through sieve holes after breakage, and passing through sieve holes after coalescence. When the interfacial tension of the system is low, the sieve plate mainly plays the role of breaking of the droplets, and the sieve plate coalescence-breakage index decreases with the increase of hole diameter. When the interfacial tension of the system is high, the sieve plate mainly plays the role of coalescing of the droplets, and the sieve plate coalescence-breakage index increases with the increase of hole diameter. The sieve plate coalescence-breakage index increases as the wettability of the sieve plate decreases. Based on experimental data, a correlation for estimating the sieve plate coalescence-breakage index was proposed, with an average deviation of 0.1144, which indicates that the correlation can be used to evaluate the coalescence-breakage characteristics of the sieve plate.