Urea

Chinese name

尿素

English name

Urea

Molecular formula

CH₄N₂O

Synonyms

Carbonyl diamine

Uses

Mainly used as a fertilizer. Also used for the manufacture of urea-formaldehyde resin, polyurethane, melamine-formaldehyde resin in industries and widely applied in medicine, explosives, tanning, flotation agents, pigments, oil product dewaxing, etc. When heated to 200 °C, it generates solid tricyanic acid (cyanuric acid). Its derivatives trichloroisocyanuric acid, sodium dichloroisocyanurate, isocyanuric acid tris (2 - hydroxyethyl ester), isocyanuric acid tris (allyl) ester, tris(3,5-di-tert-butyl-4-hydroxybenzyl) isocyanurate, isocyanuric acid triglycidyl ether and melamine cyanurate complexes are widely applied,  among which the first two are new high-grade disinfectant and bleach. 

Properties

White crystals. Melting point: 135 °C; relative density: 1.323 (20/4 °C). It decomposes into biuret, chlorine and cyanuric acid when heated to above the melting point. 1g of the product can be dissolved in 1 ml 10ml of 95% ethanol, 1ml of 95% boiling ethanol, 20ml of anhydrous ethanol, 6 ml of methanol 2 ml of glycerol. Soluble in concentrated hydrochloric acid and almost insoluble in ether and chloroform.