post regeneration handling techniques it has been unexpectedly discovered that exposing freshly generated catalysts to air can cause both the selectivity of the reaction percent hydroxylamine produced and the production rate of hydroxylamine to significantly decrease in a relatively short period of time it is believed that this phenomenon may be irreversible regenerated catalyst in production plants is often exposed to air when it is filtered handled and transferred to the reactors evaluation of these production samples indicates that significant damage can occur to catalyst which is exposed to oxygen prior to its addition to reactor trains the original selectivity of the catalyst can be preserved if the catalyst is kept in a substantially oxygen free environment it is believed that oxygen reacts readily with hydroxylamine catalysts to create a system that favors the synthesis of two undesirable products ammonium sulfate and nitrous oxide regenerated catalyst can be preserved by keeping it in a substantially oxygen free environment suitable substantially oxygen free environments may take the form of deionized and deoxygenated water nitrogen hydrogen argon or similar non oxygen containing media or environment preferably the catalysts may be preserved or stored in a sealed vessel under deionized and deoxygenated water with a nitrogen purge nitrogen bubbling with mild agitation of the deionized and deoxygenated water is preferable laboratory experiments were conducted to determine the change in specificity towards hydroxylamine associated with the use of regenerated catalysts which were exposed to oxygen several.