Azeotropic recovery of BPA and phenol from aqueous effluent streams

A continuous process for extracting and recovering BPA and phenol from an aqueous effluent stream which after treatment can be disposed of in an environmentally safe manner which initially consists essentially of an aqueous solution or suspension having up to 10% by weight of BPA and up to 5% by weight of phenol which is generated during the manufacture of BPA as a result of the washing of BPA adduct having at least 1 mole of phenol per mole of BPA, which comprises,

• (1) countercurrently extracting the aqueous effluent stream in an extraction vessel with toluene,
• (2) removing the resulting heavier aqueous phase from the bottom of the extraction vessel, while directing the upper toluene phase to a toluene distillation column,
• (3) distilling the toluene phase to produce a phenol and BPA bottoms product, while recycling the distilled toluene to the extraction vessel of (1),
• (4) directing the BPA and phenol bottoms product to a phenol distillation column,
• (5) recovering phenol as a condensed vapor and BPA as a bottoms product,
• (6) directing the aqueous phase of (2) to a distillation column to effect the separation and recovery of trace amounts of toluene from the aqueous phase and
• (7) passing the resulting aqueous phase from (6) through an activated carbon adsorber or an organic resin prior to disposal.