Effects of poly(diallyldimethylammonium chloride) addition on the curing kinetics of urea-formaldehyde adhesives for particleboards

Addition of poly(diallyldimethylammonium chloride) (PDDA) on the performances of urea-formaldehyde (UF) adhesives was evaluated in this work. Three types of UF adhesives were prepared, one without PDDA addition, and two types with PDDA addition of 1 and 3 wt.% per dry UF adhesive mass. These UF adhesive systems were used for producing experimental particleboard panels. The addition of PDDA decreased the thickness swelling of the panel samples, while the internal bond of the particleboards increased significantly only at the highest PDDA content (3 wt.%). Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) was applied to address the influence of PDDA on UF adhesive curing kinetics. DSC scans were performed in non-isothermal regimes using different heating rates (5, 10, and 20 ?C?min?1). The activation energy (Ea) of the curing reaction showed slightly lower values for the UF adhesive systems containing PDDA. However, the peak temperatures and enthalpy of reaction did not change significantly. The Kissinger-Akahira-Sunose and Friedman iso-conversional methods were applied to investigate the effects of PDDA addition on the UF adhesive curing process.