Abstract: Bisphenols are prepared bya) reacting a phenolic compound with a carbonyl compound in a reaction mixture, containing the carbonyl compound, a stoichiometric excess of the phenolic compound and a catalyst, to produce a product mixture containing a bisphenol,b) separating bisphenol from the product mixture to leave a mother liquor andc) recycling at least a portion of the mother liquor to the reaction mixture.At least a portion of the phenolic compound is contacted with a strongly acidic cation exchange resin and a strongly basic anion exchange resin before the phenolic compound is used in the reaction step a) and/or at least a portion of the product mixture and/or at least a portion or the mother liquor is contacted with a strongly acidic cation exchange resin and a strongly basic anion exchange resin before mother liquor is recycled to the reaction mixture.

Abstract: Improved processes for the removal from solution of multi-valent alkaline earth metal and/or heavy metal cations are taught, having excellent combinations of cation capacity and resistance to bead breakage. The processes use specified polymer resin beads functionalized with chelating functionalities such as alkylaminophosphonic moieties or iminodiacetic acid moieties. The beads are prepared by the specified process to have a decreased amount of cross-linking in the shell area as compared to the core. An additional aspect of the invention is an improved gel-type chelating resin having core/shell morphology and alkylaminophosphonic functional groups which is found to exhibit surprising combinations of dynamic capacity, osmotic shock resistance, and physical strength. This chelating resin has been found to be very suitable for the removal of calcium from brine solutions prior to the use of such solutions in membrane electrolysis cells of chlorine production.