Effect of analytical parameters of gel permeation chromatography on molecular weight measurements of urea-formaldehyde resins

As the molecular weight (MW) of urea-formaldehyde (UF) resins had a great impact on their properties, this work was conducted to study effect of analytical parameters of gel permeation chromatography (GPC) on the MW measurement of UF resins. GPC parameters such as flow rate, column, detector temperature, and sample injection temperature were selected to compare number-average molecular weight (Mn), weight-average molecular weight (Mw), molecular weight distribution (MWD) and polydispersity index (PDI) of two UF resins with different viscosities. As expected, UF resin with higher viscosity resulted in greater Mn and Mw than those of low viscosity UF resin. When the flow rate increased, both Mn and Mw of UF resins decreased and MWD became narrower. By contrast, both Mn and Mw increased and MWD became wide when the column, detector, and sample injection temperature increased. The column, detector, and sample injection temperature of 50°C at a flow rate of 0.5 mℓ/min resulted in the highest MW and broadest MWD for the GPC analysis. These results suggest that the apparent molecular size or a hydrodynamic radius of UF resin molecules dissolved in the mobile phase affect to Mn, Mw and MWD.