Physical gelation of water-borne thermosetting resins by percolation theory—Urea-formaldehyde, melamine-urea-formaldehyde, and melamine-formaldehyde resins

Abstract

Percolation and effective-medium theories are applied for calculating the connectivity threshold of colloid particles of given shapes, observed during the physical gelation, distinguished from chemical gelation, of aminoplastic resins. The rigidity threshold, being the critical solid fraction at which a rigid network is first formed, was also calculated. For that purpose, it was assumed that the central forces that act between the colloidal particles and aggregates were not alone, thus corresponding to the case of physical gelation. It was shown that the observed change of morphology exhibited by such particles and aggregates as a function of time, from elongated to spherical, significantly delays the gel point. Consequently, the latter occurs only after a rather high fraction of solid phase (typically from 30 to 60%) is formed. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 46: 971–978, 2008