case where the reaction temperature is lower than the melting point 52 5 u00b0 53 8 u00b0 c of n u03b1 hydroxyethyl formamide examples of the solvent include aliphatic hydrocarbons such as hexane and heptane and aromatic hydrocarbons such as benzene toluene and xylene which do not substantially dissolve the reaction product the amount of solvent should be such that the reaction product is completely dispersed it is 0 2 2 times by weight as much as formamide i addition the solvent may be added into the reaction system when the reaction proceeding the reaction product n u03b1 hydroxyethyl formamide eventually crystallizes out of the reaction system however it is desirable to cool the reaction system or to add seed crystals to the reaction system to promote crystallization and increase yields when the conversion of formamide has reached 50 80 preferably 60 80 the cooling temperature ranges from 20 u00b0 c to 30 u00b0 c preferably from 0 u00b0 c to 20 u00b0 c the addition of seed crystals may be accomplished in the usual way crystallized n u03b1 hydroxyethyl formamide may be readily recovered from the reaction system by filtration if crystallization does not take place or it is not necessary to recover crystals it is possible to add an alcohol to the reaction liquid for alkoxylation the thus obtained n u03b1 hydroxyethyl formamide is subsequently reacted with an alcohol to give n u03b1 alkoxyethyl formamide the alcohol is a primary or secondary alcohol which has 1 8 preferably 1 4 carbon atoms it includes for example methanol ethanol n propanol n butanol and.