PROCESS AND PLANT FOR TREATMENT OF DISTILLERY LEES

摘要

A process is described for the treatment of distillery lees containing copper values and waxy materials. This process comprises passing distillery lees containing copper values and waxy materials to a settling zone, retaining the distillery lees in the settling zone for a period of time effective for allowing settlement of waxy solids therefrom, recovering a liquid phase from the settling zone, contacting the liquid phase with a cation exchange resin in a first ion exchange zone having an inlet region and an outlet and containing a charge of a cation exchange resin, the cation exchange resin in the first ion exchange zone being at least partially in the H+ form, recovering an intermediate liquor from the first ion exchange zone, contacting the intermediate liquor with a cation exchange resin in a second ion exchange zone, the cation exchange resin in the second ion exchange zone being at least partially in the H+ form, recovering a final liquor having a reduced copper content from the second ion exchange zone, and backwashing ion exchange resin of the inlet portion of the first ion exchange zone with a portion of the final liquor to remove waxy materials deposited on the ion exchange resin therefrom.