John paul III - 12-9-2018 at 11:46
I have a quick question:
If you heat up urea it releases nh3 forming biuret, triuret and on. At what temperature do these reactions cease and you’re left with NH3 and CO?
[Edited on 12-9-2018 by John paul III]
Swinfi2 - 12-9-2018 at 12:33
I think the main reaction happening here is urea turning into ammonium isocyanate then decomposition to ammonium and isocyanuric acid. Polymerisation
is a side product that makes it a mess to do.
But I've yet to do it myself so i could easily be wrong.
DraconicAcid - 12-9-2018 at 21:53
I'm surprised that urea would turn into ammonium cyanate, since Wohler's famous reaction was the reverse- ammonium cyanate turning into urea when
heated.
You can't have ammonium isocyanate; cyanate can only be "iso" when it's bonded to an organic group through the nitrogen. [OCN]- is cyanate. CH3-O-CN
is methyl cyanate. CH3-N=C=O is methyl isocyanate.
Loptr - 13-9-2018 at 16:45
I thought heating urea would produce biuret?
UC235 - 13-9-2018 at 17:49
Urea decomposition is complex and produces a number of products depending on the temperature. The attached paper shows the product distribution and
discusses mechanisms.
Attachment: Urea Pyrolysis.pdf (265kB)
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