There is provided a process for purifying (meth)acrylic acid by
efficiently removing transition metal components from crude (meth)acrylic
acid containing the transition metal components as impurities. When the
crude (meth)acrylic acid containing the transition metal components as
impurities is contacted with the cation exchange resin to remove the
transition metal components therefrom, water is previously added to the
crude (meth)acrylic acid prior to contacting the crude (meth)acrylic acid
with the cation exchange resin. In the preferred embodiment of the
present invention, the transition metal component is manganese.