Variation behavior of organic compounds in melamine-urea-formaldehyde impregnated bond paper in different pyrolysis stages

Abstract

Melamine-urea-formaldehyde impregnated bond paper (MUF) is widely used as panel coating and decorative raw paper. Inappropriate treatment of MUF may lead to environmental pollution. In this study, routine MUF and MUF treated with additional titanium (MUF-T) were subjected to fast pyrolysis, and the product properties at different temperatures were investigated. The pyrolysis temperature was selected considering the reaction stages determined by Gaussian curve-fitting on thermogravimetric analysis curves. It was found that the presence of additional titanium changed the decomposition order of the organic components at 220 °C. Urea-formaldehyde in MUF could be decomposed at 220 °C, which had little effect on other components (melamine and cellulose). However, in terms of MUF-T, the decomposition temperature of urea-formaldehyde was postponed to 244 °C, which means that the pyrolysis strategy needs to choose a temperature higher than 244 °C. The volatiles in MUF-T are more easily converted to bio-gas or bio-oil than those in MUF. However, only CH4 was observed in the bio-gas generated of MUF-T at 220 °C, indicating that titanium did not catalyze the fracture of oxygen-containing functional groups at low temperatures. Titanium condensed at 550 °C, and the utilization of bio-char may face a problem of titanium particle shedding.