Ion Exchange Method

● Ion exchange, based on weakly basic resins, has been demonstrated as a

potentially useful technique for recovering acetic acid and its homologues from
dilute aqueous solutions ranging down to 1%.

● Can be used for very dilute systems(1-2%) and experiments show that 98.5% of
the acetic acid was taken up from solution by Duolite A-375 resign .

Challenges :-

● May not be suitable for continuous process.

● Time consuming( takes approximately 20 minuter for separation of a 150 ml

acetic acid -water solution).

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BLOCK DIAGRAM FOR ION EXCHANGE PROCESS

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 Some Important points

● The recovery of acid is 98.8% which means that for 2000 kg of

1% acetic acid solution we would be able to extract 19.76 kg of
acetic acid and .22 kg of acetic acid will not be recovered.

● One major drawback of this process is that there will be water

in the system and there is washing of gypsum crystals which
further increases the water content so ultimately we only get a
25 to 30 % acetic acid soln.