Ionic liquids offer an alternative to volatile organic solvents for extraction of a range of materials. This work examines the mass transfer performance of a Karr reciprocating plate column with an ionic liquid as an alternative solvent for the extraction of phenol from water. The results indicate that ionic liquids can be used in existing solvent extraction equipment and that existing correlations and models can be used to predict mass transfer performance. (C) 2012 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.