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View Full Version : Formaldehyde from Hexamine


mongo blongo
May 26th, 2004, 04:16 PM
Can any of the older members remember talking about this a while back? I can't seem to find anything on it. Maybe I imagined it.
I was wondering if anyone has tried this or has any methods/info that I may not know about.
I'm guessing that you hydrolyze hexamine into ammonia and formaldehyde with an acid, then the ammonia forms a salt with the acid and the formaldehyde gas can be dissolved into water? What acid is best for this?
My final goal is to polymerize it into paraformaldehyde. Does anyone know how to polymerize it in a way to get the correct chain length paraformaldehyde for PE synth or does this not matter?

Marvin
May 26th, 2004, 09:38 PM
Acid hydrolysis has a tendency to produce the salt of methylamine in high yeild (eg with HCl). Therees a possability the first step would get you ammonium chloride and formaldehyde but I'm not sure how much formaldehyde you would be able to get out of it, boiling it just starts the conversion (next step is just to heat in an open container). The unpolymerised solution should be ideal for PE synth.