A wet process used for making phosphoric acid by the reaction of phosphoric acid on phosphate rock. The rock is dissolved in phosphoric acid and calcium sulphate to form a slurry of calcium phosphate. This is then converted to phosphoric acid and calcium sulphate in the exothermic reaction:
Fluorine in the rock is evolved and is required to be scrubbed from the vent gas. The process was developed in the nineteenth century and there have been a number of variations of which the Dorr–Oliver process is still used.