fouling of reboilers with alkali metal salts and reduces alkali metal contamination of the heavies purge that is made downstream of the wash the anion exchange resin bed treatment in zones 14 and 15 removes as much as 80 of ethyl phenols in the stream as well as up to 100 of phenol ethyl phenols which are made during the ethyl benzene oxidation to ethyl benzene hydroperoxide are weaker acids than phenol and are only 10 removed by the usual epoxidate caustic wash ethyl phenols cause increased styrene losses to heavies in the 1 phenyl ethanol dehydration step removing 80 of ethyl phenols before dehydration saves of the order of 0 6 overall styrene selectivity which further results in substantially improved process economics when combined with a wastewater oxidation unit as in fig1 the process allows recycle of base as alkali metal carbonate solution to the epoxidate carbonate wash fresh caustic is used to regenerate the resin bed where the reaction is stoichiometric 1 equivalent caustic to extract 1 mole phenate or ethyl phenate anion overall the process has the potential to reduce fresh caustic consumption by 65 compared with the conventional operations there is also a corresponding 65 reduction in alkali metal carbonate solution that must be purged from the process the present process requires less water in the epoxidate carbonate wash for alkali metal removal compared with the conventional caustic wash the potential wastewater reduction is 50 this reduces the energy required to vaporize water in the wastewater oxidation unit ion exchange resins which are employed in practice of the invention are basic anion exchange resins which are well known articles of commerce both strong base resins and weak base resins can be used strong base resins can be produced by.