Preparation of melamine–formaldehyde resin grafted by (3-aminopropyl) triethoxysilane for high-performance hydrophobic materials

Aiming at meeting the specific market demands and expanding the downstream application of melamine–formaldehyde (MF) resins, a series of (3-aminopropyl) triethoxysilane (APTES) grafted MF (MF-Si) resins were synthesized via an effective method that minimized the hydrolysis of APTES and overcame the polarity discrepancy of APTES with MF resin matrix. The structure of MF-Si resins was characterized by FTIR spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, 1 H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), and solid state 13 C NMR. It was found that APTES moieties in MF-Si materials afforded increased hydrophobicity, water resistance, and the thermal stability was not affected. With the increasing amount of APTES, the water contact angle of MF-Si films increased from 70.56 to 105.92°and the surface free energy decreased from 46.8 to 23.5 mN/m. The temperature of maximum weight loss rate ( T dmax ) of MF-Si materials decreased slightly from 371.15 to 353.70 °C and the ultimate residual weight of MF-Si materials increased from 12.51 to 30.04% at 800 °C under N 2 . © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019 , 137 , 48664.