Multistage enantioselective liquid-liquid extraction (MELLE) of amino-(4-nitro-phenyl)-acetic acid (PGL) enantiomers using CuPF6{(S)-BINAP} as extractant was studied experimentally in a countercurrent cascade of ten centrifugal contactor separators. Based on an equilibrium stage approach, an interfacial reaction multistage equilibrium model of enantioselective liquid-liquid extraction was developed. The influence of the process parameters such as phase ratio, extractant concentration, PF6- concentration and pH on extraction efficiency was investigated by experiment and simulation. The correlation between model and experiment was satisfactory. The multistage equilibrium model was applied to optimize the symmetrical separation of PGL enantiomers. By simulation and optimization, the minimum number of stages was evaluated at 16 and 18 for ee(eq) > 97% and ee(eq) > 99%, respectively, making this work interesting in industrial application. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.