Abstract: Catering swill，with high oil content，is easy to corrupt and breed toxic and hazardous substance，posing threat to humans' health and the environment． Simultaneously，it is also a kind of useful resource if properly recycled． Oil separation from catering swill is a critical step of recycling． Using simulative oil-water emulsion as the research object，the containing oil was separated from catering swill by microwave followed by centrifugation． The impact of microwave irradiation power，time and temperature，as well as the impact of time and speed of centrifugation on oil removal rate in catering swill oil-water emulsification were studied in the paper． The results showed that the appropriate conditions of microwave irradiation were 800 W，70 ℃ and 15 min， and the optimal condition of centrifugation were 8 min，8 000 r /min．