Melamine (1, 3, 5-triamino-2, 4, 6-triazine) resin, or melamine formaldehyde (MF) is one of the hardest and stiffest thermosetting polymers, which provides good properties and performance. It is an amino resin and has various material advantages, such as transparency, better hardness, thermal stability, excellent boil resistance, scratch resistance, abrasion resistance, flame retardant, moisture resistance and surface smoothness, which lead MF to large industrial applications.

The melamine formaldehyde were brought into the market in 1935. In addition to their light-coloredness, they exhibit enhanced water and heat resistance. These resins have completely replaced thiourea-formaldehyde resins, which were also produced in the 1930s. These polymers were originally used as wood adhesives and have now found applications in flooring and decorative laminates, molding compounds, coatings, adhesives, and scientific research.

How to synthesize melamine resin?

MF can be synthesized by the reaction between melamine and formaldehyde under alkaline condition in tetrohydrofuran medium with 1:3 melamine to formaldehyde molar ratio. The synthesized resins can be characterized by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA).

What are melamine resin microspheres?

Melamine resin microspheres are produced by acid-catalyzed hydrothermal polycondensation of methylol melamine in the temperature range of 70-100°C , without any surfactant. By adjusting pH, concentration of methylol melamine, and reaction temperature, monodisperse particles of predictable size between 0.3-15 mm can be produced in a one-pot synthesis. As a result, the melamine resin particles have many functional groups (methylol, amino and imino groups) on the surface, making the particles hydrophilic and positively charged.

However, for covalent coupling, these polymer-based groups are not suitable. For special applications, melamine resin particles can be modified by adding other functional groups such as carboxyl, hydroxyl or mercapto groups. Therefore, the particle surface can undergo further chemical derivatization reactions.

What are melamine resin particles?

The fluorescent melamine resin particles are prepared by dispersion polycondensation in aqueous solution in the presence of various fluorophores, using melamine resin precursor and acid as catalyst.

Melamine resin particles for your research?

AS a supplier of a large selection of monodisperse polymer nanoparticles and microspheres with multiple sizes from 20 nm to 100 µm, CD Bioparticles can offer monodisperse polymer microspheres based on melamine resin. With excellent physical and chemical properties, CD Bioparticles’ melamine resin particles offer many advantages over other conventional polymer particles, such as high temperature resistance up to 300 °C, extremely high resistance in all organic solvents and superior mechanical stability.

These DiagPoly™ Plain Melamine Resin Microspheres are produced by a dispersion polycondensation reaction in aqueous solution using melamine resin precursors and acid as a catalyst. MF microspheres have a lot of hydroxyl groups and amino groups on the surface, making the MF microspheres with great hydrophilicity. Our MF microspheres have high monodispersity and uniformity (CV: 1.3%).

References
1. Merline, D. J., Vukusic, S., & Abdala, A. A. (2013). Melamine formaldehyde: curing studies and reaction mechanism. Polymer journal, 45(4), 413-419.
2. Pizzi, A., & Ibeh, C. C. (2014). Aminos. In Handbook of thermoset plastics (pp. 75-91). William Andrew Publishing.

Author's Bio: 

CD Bioparticles is a leading manufacturer and supplier of various nanoparticles, microparticles and their coatings for R&D and commercialization in a wide variety of application areas including in-vitro diagnostics, biochemistry, cellular analysis, cell separation, immunoassay.