Ion Exchange Applications

The basic principles of ion exchange are described in article [J 2 783] , and their implementation in article [J 2 784] , which describes in particular the construction of exchange columns and the most common applications in water treatment: softening, decarbonation and demineralization, which are not covered here.

Although ion exchange was initially used mainly in water treatment, numerous applications in a variety of industries began to appear as early as the 1950s. Today, they consume around half the volume of ion exchange resins produced. In this article, we first look at a few special water treatment processes: denitration, ultrapure water production for the semiconductor industry and condensate treatment. In the second part, we present an overview of ion exchange processes applied in other industries. The list of applications is not exhaustive.

All the processes mentioned here are implemented on an industrial scale, sometimes using considerable volumes of resin. For sugar juice treatment or uranium hydrometallurgy, these volumes can reach tens of cubic meters of resin per column .