chloroacetonitrile the reaction is accomplished by heating the reactants usually in the presence of a base such as potassium carbonate k 2 co 3 and an inert organic solvent such as dimethylformamide dmf or dimethyl sulfoxide dmso for a time sufficient to obtain the desired acetonitrile especially in cases where x is nh it may be desirable to simply heat the appropriate formula iii compound and chloroacetonitrile neat the acetonitrile is recovered and purified by conventional procedures such as those described herein the following examples are included to further illustrate the invention but are not to be construed as a limitation thereon chloroacetonitrile 45 3 grams g and 97 2 g of 3 4 dichloroaniline were heated with stirring in a 250 milliliter ml round bottomed three necked flask at about 120 u00b0 125 u00b0 c for 2 hours the reaction mixture was cooled then diluted with methylene chloride and then filtered to remove the 3 4 dichloroaniline hydrochloride 52 4 g which had formed the filtrate was concentrated to dryness under vacuum leaving a black gummy residue that crystallized on cooling the residue was put in solution in hot toluene the solution was then cooled and filtered which gave 38 3 g of.