Best Practice

Best practice for formaldehyde measurement

Best practice for determining free formaldehyde in aminoplast resins


Formacare recommends that free formaldehyde in liquid adhesives should be measured in accordance with the standardised test method EN 1243:2011. The recommendation is valid only for aminoplast resins (for example wood glues and impregnating resins) containing formaldehyde, and/or urea and/or melamine, but excluding etherified adhesives. The EN 1243:2011 standard, and recommendations for best practice, can be downloaded via the links below: 

Best practice for determining the free formaldehyde content in alkylated amino resins
The Solvent Resin Manufacturer (SRM), a sector group of Cefic, recommends using the Industry Standard DIN EN ISO 11402 4.3 Sulphite Method. The purpose of this document is to describe the best practice procedure according to the Industry Standard. The procedure itself (as written in the Standard) is the basis for this document. 

 Formaldehyde air monitoring
A wide range of test methods and devices are available on the market for measuring formaldehyde in the working environment or in indoor air. To clarify which methods are capable of providing accurate measurements, formacare experts performed a review of existing methods. A summary of the findings can be downloaded via the link below: 

Formacare recommends as best practice the use of a procedure that samples air using a 2,4-DNPH and then determines the formaldehyde concentration by HPLC. The full procedure is provided in the link below: