Abstract: The invention provides a process for the production of Maddrell's salt, wherein solid sodium dihydrogen phosphate and/or disodium dihydrogen pyrophosphate, containing catalytic amounts of an acid or of an acid-generating compound statistically distributed therein, is brought to condensation at an elevated temperature.

Abstract: A process and apparatus for condensing solid materials such as phosphates which tend to sinter and adhere when heated in a reactor wherein the reactants are introduced into a trough-like reactor provided with at least one set of rotatable agitating paddles. Heat is supplied to the reactor by passing a heating medium, such as a molten salt or a molten metal, through one or more heating jackets on the exterior of the reactor housing. The agitating paddles press the solid material in a thin layer against the wall of the reactor housing, and the material in the layer absorbs heat from the heating medium and sinters to a hard layer. One paddle of each set of paddles is provided with a stripping knife which moves along a path closely adjacent to the exterior wall of the reaction chamber to strip sintered material from the wall of the reactor housing. Heat is also transferred to the interior of the reactor housing by circulating the peeled material through the interior region of the reactor housing.

Abstract: A process and apparatus for condensing solid materials such as phosphates which tend to sinter and adhere when heated in a reactor wherein the reactants are introduced into a trough-like reactor provided with at least one set of rotatable agitating paddles. Heat is supplied to the reactor by passing a heating medium, such as a molten salt or a molten metal, through one or more heating jackets on the exterior of the reactor housing. The agitating paddles press the solid material in a thin layer against the wall of the reactor housing, and the material in the layer absorbs heat from the heating medium and sinters to a hard layer. One paddle of each set of paddles is provided with a stripping knife which moves along a path closely adjacent to the exterior wall of the reaction chamber to strip sintered material from the wall of the reactor housing. Heat is also transferred to the interior of the reactor housing by circulating the peeled material through the interior region of the reactor housing.

Abstract: A process for producing polyalcohols such as xylite from deciduous wood wherein the wood is hydrolyzed with dilute mineral acid to produce a sugar solution which is deionized and decolorized in an ion exchanger and hydrogenated to produce a polyalcohol solution which is also decolorized and deionized by ion exchange and from which pure polyalcohol is thereafter separated by crystallization, further comprising dispensing with neutralization of the acid in the sugar solution after hydrolysis, deionizing and decolorizing both the sugar solution and the polyalcohol solution in the same ion exchanger, eluting acetic acid taken up by the ion exchanger from the polyalcohol solution and displacing polyalcohol solution from the exchanger with the acid containing sugar solution, washing the ion exchanger with water only after ion exchange of the sugar solution, removing the bulk of the acetic acid from the sugar solution by evaporating the sugar solution to a higher concentration than the concentration customarily util