Abstract: Caprolactam is recovered from caprolactam distillation low boilers or high boilers or mixtures thereof by the following steps:(a) crystallizing a low or high boiler or a mixture thereof to form purified capro-lactam crystals and a mother liquor,(b) separating off the purified caprolactam crystals to leave a mother liquor,(c) recycling from 5 to 90% by weight of the mother liquor of stage (b) into stage (a) and transferring the remainder of the mother liquor into the subsequent stage (d),(d) crystallizing the remaining mother liquor portion from stage (c) to form caprolactam crystals and a mother liquor, separating off the caprolactam crystals of stage(e) (d) and recycling the same into stage (a) to leave a mother liquor,(f) recycling from 20 to 99% by weight of mother liquor of stage (e) into stage (d) and channeling out the remainder of the impurity-containing mother liquor of stage (e).

Abstract: Frozen crystal layers are purified by a process in which these crystal layers, after they have been frozen out from a melt or solution on a cooling surface, are brought into contact with a purifying liquid and thus purified over their entire thickness, after which the said layers are separated from the purifying liquid and then melted, wherein the temperature of the crystal layers and of the purifying liquid is close to the melting point or solubility temperature, mass transfer at the phase boundary is intensified by forced convection, and this purification is carried out in the course of from 1 to 60 minutes on layers having a thickness of from 0.2 to 10 mm.

Abstract: A process for the preparation of phthalic anhydride (PA) of catalytic oxidation of naphthalene or o-xylene with air, a preheated mixture of air and naphthalene or o-xylene being passed into a reactor charged with the catalyst, and the reaction gas leaving the reactor being passed through a separator in which the PA is separated out as a solid, in which process the air fed to the reactor is preheated, before or after the admixture of naphthalene or of o-xylene, by using it to cool the reaction gas in the PA separator.