Patent attributes
A process for the production of bisphenol-A having low concentration of sulphur is disclosed. The process comprise a) reacting phenol with acetone in the presence of a sulfonic acid ion exchanger to form a product mixture containing water, bisphenol-A/phenol adduct, phenol and sulfurous particles, and b) filtering the product mixture to separate the sulfurous particles to obtain a purified product mixture that contains water, phenol and bisphenol-A/phenol adduct. In one embodiment of the process further comprise distilling the purified product mixture to remove the water to obtain a first material system that contains said adduct and phenol, crystallizing the adduct, and removing the phenol by filtration using a filtering apparatus to obtain crystalline adduct. In a yet additional embodiment the process comprise crystallizing the purified product mixture to obtain a second material system that contains crystalline adduct, water and phenol and removing the phenol and water by filtration using a filtering apparatus to obtain crystalline adduct.