Raschig process

Raschig process

The Raschig process (named after the German chemist Friedrich Raschig) is a chemical process for producing hydroxylamine (used for making caprolactam for nylon manufacture). The process converts ammonium carbonate to ammonium nitrite, and this is converted to hydroxylamine disulfonate and thence to hydroxylamine sulfate.

Another similarly named process is the Raschig-Hooker process, an industrial process to create phenol. It is done by the hydrolysis of chlorobenzene.

The Olin Raschig process is an industrial process used to produce hydrazine and developed by the Olin Corporation. Sodium hypochlorite solution is mixed with ammonia at 5 °C to form chloramine and sodium hydroxide, which is then rapidly added to anhydrous ammonia under pressure and heated to 130 °C to generate hydrazine, water and sodium chloride (waste product). Ammonia is used in a 33 fold excess.