An Introduction to Melamine

In this compilation, technical and critical aspects concerning confirmatory methods for the analysis of melamine and its analogous, including cyanuric acid, ammeline, and ammelide in foodstuffs are discussed. Moreover, an overview of the concentrations of melamine and related compounds reported in the recent literature for different food items are summarized, as the results from monitoring these compounds in food products indicate their continuing presence in the food chain. Although high level of adulteration has ceased, melamine is still a popular material for pesticides, farm animal feed fillers, fire retardants, anti-wrinkles and mild abrasives. As such, the authors discuss how low-dose contamination of melamine to the environment cannot be ignored. Next, melamine-formaldehyde resin was chosen to form shell material due to its good thermo-mechanical and water-resistant properties. A series of experiments are conducted on changing the emulsifying system and a discussion of the results is provided. Additionally, a sensitive chemical sensor is developed to detect melamine selectively by an electrochemical approach, where ternary mixed metal oxide nanoparticles were prepared through the wet-chemical process. The calcined ZnO/CuO/Co3O4 NPs are investigated by field emission scanning electron microscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, powder X-ray diffraction, ultraviolet visible spectroscopy, and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy. The authors evaluate the formation of melamine-derived particles in aqueous and biological matrices using different analytical techniques for studying the bioaccumulation of melamine-cyanurate in tissues, including kidney stones. Lastly, cadmium doped antimony oxide nanostructures are synthesized by a facile wet-chemical method at a low temperature to detect melamine from aqueous solutions. The calcined cadmium doped antimony oxide nanostructures are characterized systematically by FE-SEM, EDS, UV/Vis., FTIR spectroscopy, powder XRD and XPS techniques.