The by-product hydrocarbon fraction was extd. with NaOH in membrane contactors to remove PhOH, distd. to remove compds. b. below cumene and above a-methylstyrene to yield a 1-2% impure feed in 90% yield to be hydrogenated over a Ni catalyst to convert alpha-methylstyrene and thus to prep. a 96.5-97.5% cumene to make cumene hydroperoxide that did not need to be purified. At the wastewater treatment stage, two distillation steps were introduced to recover nearly 90% acetone and PhOH from wastewaters and from the reclaim collected at the sorbent bed regeneration step. This step was modified to eliminate the pptn. of Na2SO4 and to minimize the total vol. of the wastewaters leaving the Plant.