When nitriles are hydrolysed you can think of them reacting with water in two stages - first to produce an amide, and then the ammonium salt of a carboxylic acid.
For example, ethanenitrile would end up as ammonium ethanoate going via ethanamide.


In practice, the reaction between nitriles and water would be so slow as to be completely negligible. The nitrile is instead heated with either a dilute acid such as dilute hydrochloric acid, or with an alkali such as sodium hydroxide solution.
The nitrile is heated under reflux with dilute hydrochloric acid. Instead of getting an ammonium salt as you would do if the reaction only involved water, you produce the free carboxylic acid.
For example, with ethanenitrile and hydrochloric acid you would get ethanoic acid and ammonium chloride.


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