Influence of Hydrolytic Degradation on the Morphology of Cured Urea-Formaldehyde Resins of Different Formaldehyde/Urea Mole Ratios

Abstract

ABSTRACT In an effort to understand the hydrolytic degradation process of cured urea-formaldehyde (UF) resins responsible for the formaldehyde emission of wood-based composite panels, this study analyzed the influ-ence of acid hydrolysis on the morphology of cured UF resins with different formaldehyde/urea (F/U) mole ratios such as 1.6, 1.4, 1.2 and 1.0. Field emission-scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) was em-ployed to observe both exterior and fracture surfaces on thin films of cured UF resins before and after the etching with hydrochloric acid as a simulation of the hydrolytic degradation process. FE-SEM images showed that the exterior surface of cured UF resin with the F/U mole ratio of 1.0 had spherical structures after the acid hydrolysis while the other cured UF resins were not the case. However, the fracture surface observation showed that all the samples possessed spherical structures in the cured state of UF resins al-though their occurrence and size decreased as the F/U mole ratio increased. For the first time, we found the spherical structures in cured UF resins of higher F/U mole ratio of 1.4. After the acid hydrolysis, the spherical structures became a much predominant at the fracture surface. These results indicated that the spherical structures in cured UF resinswere much more resistant to the hydrolytic degradation by the acid than amorphous region. Keywords : adhesives, thermosets, morphology, electron microscopy, degradation, structure