Technology

Traditionally, commercial scale BPA production has been based on a strong mineral acid catalyst such as hydrochloric acid. Hydrochloric acid is highly corrosive, so the BPA plant requires expensive corrosion-proof materials. So an alternative catalyst now widely used is cation exchange resin. This type of catalyst mitigates equipment corrosion. BPA is produced by reaction of two moles of phenol and one mole of acetone in reactor, which is fixed bed columns filled with cation exchange resin.