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Sugarcane harvester extractors are used to separate impurities during mechanical harvesting and their performance directly determines the impurity content of sugarcane billets. In this study, computational fluid mechanics (CFD) was used to analyse the flow field near the impeller of original design of extractor. The SST k-ω model and realisable k-ε model were used to calculate the turbulence in 2D and 3D flow fields respectively. The simulation results of 2D models showed that sharply shape from the leading to trailing edges of the original blade design could cause more energy losses. An improved blade design with smoother leading edge and trailing edges had improved performance with a maximum lift coefficient increased by 28.7%. 3D simulation results showed that when the fan speed was 1050 rpm, 1350 rpm and 1650 rpm respectively, the total pressure efficiency of the improved extractor was 11.45%, 9.03% and 6.7% higher than the original extractor, respectively. Impurity content experiments showed that when the feed rate was 1 kg s−1, 2 kg s−1 and 3 kg s−1, compared with the original extractor, the impurity content of the improved extractor decreased by 0.46, 0.41 and 0.71 percentage points at most. The results showed that the impurity content and energy consumption of the improved extractor was less than that of the original design of extractor. • Study proposes improvement method of extractor blade using CFD. • Improvements suggested by CFD models verified by experiment. • Blade modified by simple changes improved aerodynamic performance of extractor. • Modified blade enhanced cleaning performance and energy utilisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]