Decolorization of Aqueous Caprolactam Solution by Anion-exchange Resins

Caprolactam is the most important raw material for making Nylon 6 fibers and its quality directly determines the quality of Nylon. So it is necessary to study the techniques and methods to remove the colorful impurities from caprolactam. In this paper, the decolorization of caprolactam aqueous solution by anion exchange resins was studied and the decoloring abilities of five commercial resins were investigated. The regeneration of the resins was also studied, too. This study shows that the resin AMTX202 have excellent decoloring ability in the column experiment and that the decoloring efficiency is correlated with the volume of resins packed and is slightly affected by the flow rate and regenerating times. The fact that the resins can be regenerated and reused without affecting the efficiency of decolorization will decrease the cost of the treatment and operation in the industry. The adsorption of colored compounds with anion exchange resins in the packed columns seems to be technically feasible.