Abstract
Aged and whitened melamine–urea–formaldehyde (MUF) resins in a colloidal state were tested with parallel‐plate rheometry to determine the extent of their viscoelastic behavior. Only in advanced colloidal states, and so only when aggregated colloidal clusters occurred, did the resins present clear indications of viscoelastic responses, as illustrated by the crossover of elastic modulus and viscous modulus curves at lower strain percentages. These colloidal clusters were labile microstructures, which, broken by applied shear, justified the known thixotropic behavior of these resins sufficiently advanced by aging or other means. MUF resins already in the colloidal state, but for which colloidal clustering had not yet occurred, behaved exclusively as viscous liquids. Two different cases of physical gelation were observed, reversible physical gelation and irreversible physical gelation, underlying which a true gel situation possibly occurred. Physical gelation due to colloidal superstructures occurred in both, but the difference in the resin average molecular masses revealed if the physical gelation was reversible or irreversible and, therefore, if the liquid/cluster separation was defined as the terminal phase of physical gelation. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 96: 655–659, 2005