It is recommended to soak ion exchange resins in demineralised water overnight before placing the ion exchange resins in service. This is especially important for anion exchange resins to make sure they are fully hydrated and for inert resin to reduce their hydrophobicity. This operation is used to minimize the floating and potential loss of these resins if they are backwashed before the first service cycle.

There’re special procedures for different applications as follows :-

• Water Treatment  / Softening : as long as they are in their regenerated forms, ion exchange resins are ready

to be used. E.g.: water softening resin that is in Na+ form.

• Demineralization : if the cation resin is in the H+ form and anion resin that is in the OH- form they are ready to use. If they have been bought or are in the exhausted form (i.e.: Na+ form for cation and Cl- form for anion resins), then they need to be regenerated with acid and caustic soda, to restore the active form (H+ and OH- respectively).
• Condensate Polishing resins and special resins (i.e.: ultra pure water applications) that are already in the regenerated forms can be rinsed until the desired TOC concentration, resistively or conductivity is achieved.

It is important that ion exchange resins are loaded properly. Loading procedures for single bed, mixed bed, and layered bed are available.