Melamin

Melamine dissolves in water very little. It contains 66% nitrogen. This nitrogen is released when melamine burns and suppresses fire. Sometimes melamine is illegally added to food to mask insufficient protein content.

Melamine is a synthetic, organic compound widely used in the production of various artificial chemicals. It is a heterocyclic compound, a trimer of cyanamide (2,4,6-triamino-1,3,5-triazine). Melamine is poorly soluble in water. Due to its high nitrogen content (up to 66%), it is often used as a flame retardant (plastics, paints, paper products). For the same reason, it is illegally used to increase the content of proteins, i.e., nitrogenous substances, in low-quality foods. The scandal with Chinese milk from the year 2008 is well-known.

Reacting with formaldehyde, melamine is used to synthesize melamine resins serving as the main raw material for laminated products. It also finds applications in other chemicals (insulators, pigments, artificial fibers, etc.). Due to its high nitrogen content, melamine was used for some time as a fertilizer, but this practice was abandoned due to the higher cost of its production.

While common laboratory animals like mice and rats are quite resistant to melamine, cats and dogs are very sensitive to it. It causes acute kidney failure in them, which is often the cause of death. Melamine added to milk powder for children in China had a similar effect. It was added to the milk to artificially increase the measured protein content in tests, thereby falsely presenting the raw material as more "valuable." However, melamine in baby food caused liver and kidney diseases and urinary stone formation in infants and older children. Problems with melamine in pet food imported from China were revealed a year earlier (in 2007) by a scandal in the USA.