The hydrodynamics and mass transfer performance of a novel spiral nozzle tray (SNT), using the commercial spiral nozzle as the mass transfer element, was investigated in this research. The hydrodynamic performance parameters include pressure drop, weeping, clear liquid height and entrainment. All the experiments were conducted in an air-water system under atmospheric pressure. The mass transfer efficiency of the SNT was studied in a stainless steel column for separating the mixture of cyclohexane and n-heptane. The bubble visualization experiment was set up to determine the cause why the SNT had such particular mass transfer efficiency. The results indicate that the SNT can be considered as a promising tray for distillation. Combining the spiral nozzle with the column tray will be a new direction for the development of the column internals. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.