N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) is a low toxicity stable polar solvent used to recover pure hydrocarbons when processing petrochemicals, to desulphurize gases, as a solvent to dissolve a range of chemicals (particularly in the polymers arena) and as a solvent for the surface treatment of textiles, resins and metal coated plastics. The DAVY™ NMP process is a novel process for producing NMP from methylamine and gamma butyrolactone. Our process utilizes a non-catalytic reaction of gamma-butyrolactone (GBL) and monomethylamine (MMA) with the separation by distillation of the product to produce solvent quality NMP.