Melamine, structure

Melamine and its salts are widely used in formulations of fire retardant additives, particularly of the intumescent type (4-71. The role played by melamine structures in these additives is however not yet understood. The thermal behaviour is of paramount importance in studies of the fire retardance mechanism. It is known that melamine undergoes progressive condensation on heating with elimination of ammonia and formation of polymeric products named "melam", "melem", "melon" (8.91. The following schematic reaction is reported in the literature (10-121 ... 

Researchers at the Eastern Forest Products Laboratory in Canada have evaluated the urea and melamine amino-resin systems (9, 57, 99-110). Their work demonstrates that both systems show good leach resistance and reduced flame spread. The stability of these resins is controlled by the rate of methylolation of the urea, melamine, and dicyandiamide. The optimum mole ratio for stability of these solutions is 1 3 12 4 for urea or melamine, dicyandiamide, formaldehyde, and orthophosphoric acid. However, even at the optimum mole ratios, the pot life of the melamine system is less than that of the urea system. In both systems the nitrogen is fixed to a greater degree than the phosphorus. However, the degree of fixation of the phosphorus is greater with the melamine than with the urea. The melamine structure may promote formation of compounds with phosphoric acid that are less soluble than those from urea and dicyandiamide. 

PMF-resins usually contain little or no urea. The analysis of the molecular structure of these resins has shown that there is no co-condensation between the phenol and the melamine, but that there are two distinct networks [52-55]. The... 

Developments in glued laminated structures and panel products such as plywood and chipboard raises the question of the durability of adhesives as well as wood. Urea-formaldehyde adhesives are most commonly used for indoor components. For exterior use, resorcinol adhesives are used for assembly work, whilst phenolic, tannin and melamine/urea adhesives are used for manufactured wood products. Urea and casein adhesives can give good outdoor service if protected with well-maintained surface finishes. Assembly failures of adhesives caused by exudates from some timber species can be avoided by freshly sanding the surfaces before glue application. 

Melmac, a thermosetting resin often used to make plastic dishes, is prepared by heating melamine with formaldehyde. Look at the structure ol Bakelite shown in Section 31.5, and then propose a structure for Melntac. 

Amino resins are those polymers prepared by reaction of either urea or melamine with formaldehyde. In both cases the product that results from the reaction has a well crosslinked network structure, and hence is a thermoset polymer. The structures of the two parent amino compounds are shown in Figure 1.1. 

Beton and co-workers extended the hydrogen bonding approach to two-component systems, generating a number of structures that utilise different molecular motifs.24 26 In the case of perylene tetracarboxylic diimide (PTCDI) co-adsorbed with melamine (1,3,5-triazine-2,4,6-triamine) on a silver-terminated silicon surface, a network is formed in which the straight edges correspond to PTCDI with melamine at the vertices (Figure 11.6). The network shows large-area pores that the authors used to trap heptamers of C6o molecules. 

Limited decomposition of the sulphate and extensive melamine condensation overlap in this second step with condensation of sulphuric acid residues to pyrosulphuric structures. This is shown by water evolution and appearance of typical absorptions of pyrosulphate... 

The experimental weight loss in the first and second step (4.0 and 4.5% respectively) is in agreement with that corresponding to condensation to pyrophosphate (4.0%) and polyphosphate (4.2X, n 1). Furthermore, the IR spectra of melamine phosphate and of the residues at 300 and 330 C (Figure 14 spectra A, B and C respectively) show that besides the typical bands of phosphate salts (950-1300 cm-1) which are present in the three spectra, a new absorption due to P-O-P bonds (ca. 890 cm-1) appears in the spectra of the residues. The absorptions due to melamine salt structures (e.g. 780-790 and 1450-1750 cm ) are closely similar in the three spectra of Figure 14. Fire retardants based on melamine pyrophosphate and polyphosphate are reported in the literature 51 as well as methods for preparation of these salts (25-... 

Moreover, simultaneous evolution of water implies that condensation of melamine is combined with that of polyphosphoric structures. Assuming the reaction scheme proposed above, melam polyphosphate and ammonium polyphosphate groups should be formed from melamine polyphosphate ... 

Crosslinked polymer particles with a rather complex structure, which have also been designated by the name microgels and recommended as components of metal effect paints, consist of carboxyl-terminated oligoesters of 12-hydroxy stearic acid which were reacted with glycidyl methacrylate, subsequently copolymerized with MMA and hydroxymethyl methacrylate and then crosslinked by hydroxy melamine [346]. 

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