A Comparison of Adhesion Behavior of Urea-Formaldehyde Resins with Melamine-Urea-Formaldehyde Resins in Bonding Wood

This paper reports a comparison of adhesion behavior of urea-formaldehyde (UF) with those of melamine-urea-formaldehyde (MU) resins in bonding wood by analyzing the results published in literatures. For this purpose, the adhesion behavior of UF resins prepared by blending low-viscosity resin (LVR) with high-viscosity resin (HVR) at five different blending and two formaldehyde/urea (F/U) molar ratios (1.0 and 1.2) was compared with those of two MUF resins synthesized by either simultaneous reaction (MUF-A resins) or multi-step reaction (MUF-B resins) with three melamine contents (5, 10, and 20 wt%). As the blending (LVR:HVR) ratio increased from 100:0 to 0:100, the viscosity and molar mass (Mw and Mn) of the blended UF resins increased while the gelation time decreased. The interphase features such as maximum storage modulus (E′max), resin penetration depth, and bond-line thickness of the UF resins increased to a maximum and then decreased as the blending ratio increased. In addition, both MUF-A and MUF-B resins also showed an increase in the Mw and Mn as the melamine content increased from 5% to 20%. However, the E′max, resin penetration depth, and bond-line thickness of the MUF resins decreased as the molar mass or melamine content increased. These results indicated that the adhesion of UF resins heavily depends on the interphase features while that of the MUF resins highly depends on the cohesion of the resins.