Production and purification of phenol

A process for producing phenol comprising the steps of:

• converting cumene to produce a crude phenol which may contain carbonyl-type impurities;
• reacting the crude phenol and any carbonyl-type impurities in the presence of an ion exchange resin catalyst (IER) to produce a reaction product that may contain sulfonic acid compounds;
• contacting the reaction product with an anion exchange material to reduce the amount of sulfonic acid compounds which may be present and to produce a purified phenol-containing stream, said anion exchange material comprising a layered double hydroxide composition of the formula:
• [MII1-xMIIIx(OH)2](An−)x/n
• or a hydrate thereof, wherein MII is a divalent metal cation, MIII is a trivalent metal cation, A is an interlayer anion of charge n−, and x is from 0.12 to 0.8.

A facility for converting a cumene to phenol, said facility comprising:

• a vessel containing cumene;
• a first reaction vessel connected to the vessel containing cumene, wherein in said first reaction vessel the cumene is oxidized to form a cumene hydroperoxide (CHP) mixture;
• a second reaction vessel connected to the first reaction vessel, wherein in said second reaction vessel the CHP mixture is cleaved to form a crude cleavage mass mixture;
• a separation section connected to receive the crude cleavage mass mixture, wherein the crude cleavage mass mixture is separated into streams, wherein one of those streams is a crude phenol stream (CPS) comprising phenol and which may contain carbonyl-type impurities;
• an ion exchange resin catalyst (IER) bed connected to receive the CPS and to produce a reaction product that may contain sulfonic acid compounds;
• an anion bed connected to receive the reaction product, said anion bed comprising a layered double hydroxide composition of the formula:
• [MII1-xMIIIx(OH)2](An−)x/n
• or a hydrate thereof, wherein MII is a divalent metal cation, MIII is a trivalent metal cation, A is an interlayer anion of charge n−, and x is from 0.12 to 0.8.