Liquid chromatographic procedure for the separation and characterisation of simple urea-formaldehyde reaction products

Abstract

A procedure is described for separating about 20 simple, low relative molecular mass urea-formaldehyde reaction products by liquid chromatography on an aminopropyl column using aqueous acetonitrile as eluent. The technique is shown to have considerable advantages over previously published methods. The preparation and characterisation of some reference compounds, which so far have been little studied, are given in detail. The use of reaction mixtures of urea and formaldehyde for identifying peaks is described. Almost all of the peaks observed in commercial urea-formaldehyde formulations can now be identified by this technique.