BLUE SKY INDO: Melamine Scandal

BLUE SKY INDO: Melamine Scandal

Melamine Scandal

What’s melamine? It should be the first question in our mind. Melamine is an organic base and a trimer of cyanamide, with a 1,3,5-triazine skeleton. Like cyanamide, it contains 66% nitrogen by mass and, if mixed with resins, has fire retardant properties due to its release of nitrogen gas when burned or charred. Melamine is also a metabolite of cyromazine, a pesticide. It is formed in the body of mammals that have ingested chromatin. It has been reported that cyromazine can also be converted to melamine in plants.Melamine combines with cyanuric acid to form melamine cyanurate, which has been implicated in the Chinese protein export contaminations.

The German word melamine was coined by combining the names of 2 other chemical products: Melam (a distillation derivative of ammonium thiocyanate) and Amine.

In industrial sector melamine have function according to the propose e.g.:

1. In plastic industry Melamine is combined with formaldehyde to produce melamine resin, a very durable thermosetting plastic used in Formica, and melamine foam, a polymeric cleaning product. The end products include countertops, dry erase boards, fabrics, glues, house wares and flame retardants. Melamine is one of the major components in Pigment Yellow 150, a colorant in inks and plastics.

2. Melamine also enters the fabrication of melamine poly-sulfonate used as super plasticizer for making high-resistance concrete. Sulfonated melamine formaldehyde (SMF) is a polymer used as cement admixture to reduce the water content in concrete while increasing the fluidity and the workability of the mix during its handling and pouring. It results in concrete with a lower porosity and a higher mechanical strength exhibiting an improved resistance to aggressive environments and a longer life-time.

3. Another useful of melamine as fertilizer for crops and had been envisaged during the '50s and '60s because of its high nitrogen content. However melamine is much more expensive to produce than other common nitrogen fertilizers, such as urea. It’s effective as a fertilizer, essential that the plant nutrients are released or made available in a manner that matches the needs of the growing crop. The nitrogen mineralization process for melamine is extremely slow, making this product both economically and scientifically impractical for use as a fertilizer.

4. Melamine has derivatives (arsenical) drugs are potentially important in the treatment of African trypanosomiasis.

Although melamine has many function in industrial but in fact it’s a dangerous substance. Melamine is described as being "Harmful if swallowed, inhaled or absorbed through the skin. Chronic exposure may cause cancer or reproductive damage. Eye, skin and respiratory irritant. However, the toxic dose is on a par with common table salt with an LD of more than 3 grams per kilogram of bodyweight. FDA scientists explained that when melamine and cyanuric acid are absorbed into the bloodstream, they concentrate and interact in the urine-filled renal microtubules, then crystallize and form large numbers of round, yellow crystals, which in turn block and damage the renal cells that line the tubes, causing the kidneys to malfunction.

Because of it, the European Union set a standard for acceptable human consumption of melamine at 0.5 milligrams per kg of body mass, Canada declared a limit of 0.35 mg and the US FDA’s limit was put at 0.63 mg, but was later reduced to 0.063 mg daily. The World Health Organization’s food safety director estimated that the amount of melamine a person could stand per day without incurring a bigger health risk, the "tolerable daily intake" (TDI), was 0.2 mg per kg of body mass.

Melamine use as non-protein nitrogen (NPN) for cattle was described in a 1958 patent. In 1978, however, a study concluded that melamine "may not be an acceptable non-protein N source for ruminants" because its hydrolysis in cattle is slower and less complete than other nitrogen sources such as cottonseed meal and urea. Melamine is sometimes illegally added to food products in order to increase the apparent protein content. Standard tests such as the Kjeldahl and Dumas tests estimate protein levels by measuring the nitrogen content, so they can be misled by adding nitrogen-rich compounds such as melamine.

Some dangerous of melamine caused the characteristic of this substance are:

1. Toxicity characteristic caused melamine has an oral LD of 3248 mg/kg based on rat data. It is also an irritant when inhaled or in contact with the skin or eyes. A toxicology study conducted after recalls of contaminated pet food concluded that the combination of melamine and cyanuric acid in diet does lead to acute renal failure in cats.

2. Chronic toxicity Ingestion of melamine may lead to reproductive damage, or bladder or kidney stones, which can lead to bladder cancer. A study in 1953 reported that dogs fed 3% melamine for a year had the following changes in their urine: (1) reduced specific gravity, (2) increased output, (3) melamine crystalloid, and (4) protein and occult blood. That’s some of the toxin dangerous of melamine.

3. To produce melamine in big amount the world has known synthesis program. Melamine has been synthesized by the German chemist Justus von Liebig in 1834. In early production, first calcium cyanamide is converted into dicyandiamide, and then heated above its melting temperature to produce melamine. However, today most industrial manufacturers use urea in the following reaction to produce melamine:

6 (NH₂)₂CO → C₃H₆N₆ + 6 NH₃ + 3 CO₂

It can be understood as two steps.

First, urea decomposes into cyanic acid and ammonia in an endothermic reaction:

(NH₂)₂CO → HCNO + NH₃

Then, cyanic acid polymerizes to form melamine and carbon dioxide:

6 HCNO → C₃H₆N₆ + 3 CO₂

The second reaction is exothermic but the overall process is endothermic.

The above reaction can be carried out by either of two methods: catalyzed gas-phase production or high pressure liquid-phase production. In one method, molten urea is introduced onto a fluidized bed with catalyst for reaction. Hot ammonia gas is also present to fluidize the bed and inhibit deammonization. The effluent then is cooled. Ammonia and carbon dioxide in the off-gas are separated from the melamine-containing slurry. The slurry is further concentrated and crystallized to yield melamine. Major manufacturers and licensors such as DSM, BASF, and Eurotecnica have developed some proprietary methods.

The off-gas contains large amounts of ammonia. Therefore melamine production is often integrated into urea production which uses ammonia as feedstock.

Crystallization and washing of melamine generates a considerable amount of waste water, which is a pollutant if discharged directly into the environment. The waste water may be concentrated into a solid (1.5–5% of the weight) for easier disposal. The solid may contain approximately 70% melamine, 23% oxytriazines (ammeline, ammelide, and cyanuric acid), 0.7% polycondensates (melem, melam, and melon).

Surplus melamine has been an adulterant for feedstock and milk in mainland China for several years now because it can make diluted or poor quality material appear to be higher in protein content by elevating the total nitrogen content detected by some simple protein tests. Actions taken in 2008 by the Government of China have reduced the practice of adulteration, with the goal of eliminating it. Court trials began in December 2008 for six people linked to the scandal and ended in January 2009 with two of the convicts being sentenced to death.

Testing for melamine and cyanuric acid in food could be done but it’s not an easy way. Until the 2007 pet food recalls, melamine had not routinely been monitored in food, except in the context of plastic safety or insecticide residue. This could be due to the previously assumed low toxicity of melamine, and the relatively expensive methods of detection. In October 2008, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued new methods for the analysis of melamine and cyanuric acid in infant formulations in the Laboratory Information Bulletin No 4421. Similar recommendations have been issued by other authorities, like the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, both based on liquid chromatography – mass spectrometry (LC/MS) detection after hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography (HILIC) separation.

The existing methods for melamine determination using a triple quadruple liquid chromatography – mass spectrometry (LC/MS) after solid phase extraction (SPE) are often complex and time consuming. However, electro spray ionization methods coupled with mass spectrometry allow a rapid and direct analysis of samples with complex matrices: the native liquid samples are directly ionized under ambient conditions in their original solution. In December 2008, two new fast and inexpensive methods for detecting melamine in liquids have been published on-line in the Chem. Comm. Journal of the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK).The Melaminometer uses a synthetic biology design for detecting melamine and related chemical analogues such as cyanuric acid. By using this equipment, it could be detected well than using others.

Open Communication Event

Open Communication.

Open communication is an activity to open our minded. Sometimes done to explain something to our boss or our friend in informal or in formal condition. At time we could tell everything which has become our challenge in our job. Tell the truth and try to find out the solution from the all of problem which we have.
Open communication event sometimes done to build friendship between all employees each other and their employer. This event proposes to solve all problems in a company and making better job relationship. In open communication you could ask or tell your opinion freely without force from anyone. Beside of that your employee could be telling you the truth what their hopes, give you advice of course to get the company goal and making it be better in the future.
Open communication sometimes done in a restaurant or in a picnic place, it’s done in order to give relax condition to the contestant. In my company open communication done in Hanamasa restaurant. That’s a Japanese restaurant in Indonesia. At that place I could tell to my boss what problem was at office, asking his advice and opinion. From this event to we could improve our self by listening opinion from others, I mean we could know our strong and weakness point each other. Especially for the weakness point we must be improve it to make it better in the next time. But not only open communication which could be done to know our strong or weakness point, of course there are so much way to do that and one of that by doing Open communication Event.