After the successful development of anion and cation exchange resin, the study of using anion and cation exchange resin simultaneously in a single ion exchange tower led to the emergence of mixed bed treatment method. This special treatment method can completely remove the ions in the water. The mixed bed technology can not only greatly improve the quality of pure water, but also greatly improve the water inflow of the boiler. It is also the best treatment method used in condensate recovery. Therefore, it can be said that without the emergence of ion exchange resin, the power generation cost will increase several times today. At present, the largest consumption of ion exchange resin is used in the pure water treatment of power plants, by atomic energy, semiconductor, electronic industry and so on. Ultrapure water can be prepared by using ion exchange resin, which can greatly improve the yield of micro wafer.

2、 Food industry

Ion exchange resin can be used in sugar, monosodium glutamate, wine refining, biological products and other industries. For example, high fructose syrup can be produced by extracting starch from corn, then hydrolyzing to produce glucose and fructose, and then ion exchange treatment. In the process of ion exchange, fructose can be completely converted into resin. In addition, in the next step of the conversion reaction, some ionic substances need to be added, so the deionization reaction process is needed again. In order to improve the sweetness of fructose, invert sugar can be separated by ion exchange resin chromatography, and fructose can be concentrated. The consumption of ion exchange resin in the production of high fructose syrup is second only to the water treatment industry.

3、 Pharmaceutical Engineering

Ion exchange resin plays an important role in developing a new generation of antibiotics and improving the quality of original antibiotics. The successful development of streptomycin is a prominent example. Carboxylic acid cation exchange resin can not only adsorb streptomycin from high concentration fermentation broth, but also remove impurities. Therefore, it can be said that ion exchange resin makes a great contribution to the mass production of high-purity antibiotics. At the same time, this kind of resin has been more and more used in biomedical engineering.

4、 Synthetic chemistry and petrochemical industry

In organic synthesis, acid and base are often used as catalysts for esterification, hydrolysis, transesterification, alcohol aldehyde condensation, hydration and so on. Using ion exchange resin instead of inorganic acid and alkali can also carry out the above reaction, and has more advantages. For example, the resin can be used repeatedly, the product is easy to separate, the reactor will not be corroded, will not pollute the environment, and the reaction is easy to control.

The strong acid cation exchange resin with macroporous network structure can be used as catalyst in non-aqueous solution system in petrochemical industry. For example, the preparation of methyl tert butyl ether (MTBE) is made by the reaction of isobutene and methanol with macroporous strong acid ion exchange resin as catalyst. It is a very effective gasoline shock absorber, which is used to replace the original shock absorber added to gasoline - tetraethyl lead, which will release toxic lead compounds after gasoline combustion, causing serious pollution to the environment, MTBE solves this pollution problem.

5、 Environmental protection

Ion exchange resins have been used in many environmental protection issues of great concern. At present, many toxic ions or non-ionic substances contained in aqueous or non-aqueous solutions can be recycled by resins. Such as removing metal ions from electroplating waste liquid, recovering useful substances from film making waste liquid, removing phenol and its derivatives from waste water, and treating pesticide waste water.

6、 Hydrometallurgy and others

Ion exchange resin can separate, concentrate and purify uranium from depleted uranium ore and extract rare earth elements and precious metals.

Ion exchange resin has been widely used in the enrichment and analysis of trace ions in water, as well as the separation and analysis of biochemical substances. Ligand exchange resin is used as chromatographic stationary phase for the resolution of racemate. High performance ion exchange chromatography, because small particle ion exchange resin (generally 5-10 microns) is used as the stationary phase, ion exchange separation can achieve the purpose of high efficiency, high speed and continuous determination in the high-pressure system. For example, the separation of rare earth elements by classical method takes tens to 100 hours, while the separation by high-performance ion exchange chromatography takes only 30-60 minutes.