Melamine sponge and polyurethane foam are common cleaning, sound-absorbing, and heat-insulating materials in our lives. So what are the differences between melamine sponge and polyurethane foam in these applications?

1. Comparison of melamine foam and polyurethane foam in cleaning applications

Although melamine foam feels soft to the touch, it is actually a very hard material with a very high porosity of 99.9%. Due to its hard texture and high porosity, melamine foam has strong adsorption properties and can easily remove stains from the surface of objects. In comparison, polyurethane foam is a relatively soft material that can also clean stains, but not as effectively as melamine foam.

2.Comparison of melamine foam and polyurethane foam in sound-absorbing applications

Polyurethane foam - sound absorption coefficient
Frequency 125Hz 250Hz 500Hz 1KHz 2KHz 4KHz NRC
Coefficient 0.13 0.60 0.81 0.97 1.00 0.90 0.85
Melamine foam - sound absorption coefficient
Frequency 125Hz 250Hz 500Hz 1KHz 2KHz 4KHz NRC
Coefficient 0.33 0.42 0.63 1.23 1.35 1.41 0.9

As shown in the table above, both melamine foam and polyurethane foam have good sound-absorbing properties. We can see that the sound absorption effect of polyurethane foam is worse than that of melamine foam between 250-500Hz, while the sound absorption effect of polyurethane in other audio bands is not as good as that of melamine foam.

In addition, due to the flammability of polyurethane foam, polyurethane foam cannot be used for industrial sound absorption and is only suitable for indoor installation. However, melamine foam has excellent flame retardancy. Without adding any flame retardant, the flame retardant level of melamine foam can reach B1 level. Therefore, melamine foam is more widely used in sound absorption. SINOYQX melamine resin foam has excellent sound absorption, flame retardant, heat insulation, light weight, environmental protection and easy secondary processing properties. It can be widely used in architectural acoustics, professional acoustics and equipment acoustic noise reduction and other acoustic fields.

3. Comparison of melamine foam and polyurethane foam in thermal insulation applications

The working temperature of melamine foam can reach -200~240°C. SINOYQX melamine resin foam has a wide range of weather resistance and maintains a stable physical and chemical structure under high and low temperature conditions. It also provides excellent thermal conductivity (thermal conductivity, 0.035 W/ (m*K)) and sound absorption performance, light weight, environmental protection and safety, making it particularly suitable for pipe insulation (clean room), high temperature insulation (boilers, solar collectors, tank trucks, fire-fighting equipment), low-temperature insulation (cold storage, refrigeration/freezers, LNG stations, LNG transport trucks or ships), improvement of air inlet acoustics and wind speed adjustment in thermal power stations, noise reduction and insulation materials for wind power generation, and overall noise reduction and filtration (air and water filtration) of hydropower stations.

However, the high temperature resistance of polyurethane foam is average, especially the resistance to moisture and heat is poor. The normal operating temperature range of polyurethane foam is -40~120°C. Because polyurethane foam is flammable, it cannot be used for engineering insulation, fire protection, and heat insulation. Polyurethane foam is often used for home insulation, such as when sofas and mattresses are filled with polyurethane foam.

4. Compared with polyurethane foam, melamine foam is more suitable for transportation and electronic fields.

Transportation field: Melamine foam has excellent sound absorption and heat insulation (0.035 W/ (m*K)) properties, as well as flame retardant, light weight, environmental protection and safety characteristics. It can be used for composite processing with a variety of materials, and its comprehensive performance is extremely excellent. Widely used in aerospace, rail vehicles, automobile manufacturing, ship and yacht manufacturing, and military manufacturing.

Electronic field: Melamine foam is particularly suitable for 5G base stations (electromagnetic shielding protection of 5G equipment, and thermal insulation); various antistatic applications (transportation and packaging of various electronic equipment, etc.); supercapacitors (carbonized melamine resin foam has a large specific surface area and is particularly suitable as an electrode material for supercapacitors); white goods insulation, noise reduction, and electromagnetic shielding protection (rice cookers, noise reduction, insulation, and refrigerators, noise reduction, insulation, and heat preservation) , microwave noise reduction and heat insulation, range hood noise reduction and heat insulation, server noise reduction and heat insulation, electric water heater noise reduction and heat insulation).

5. Comparison between melamine foam and polyurethane foam in other aspects

Polyurethane foam is cheaper to manufacture and therefore less expensive to procure than melamine foam. On the contrary, melamine foam is slightly more expensive than polyurethane foam due to its complex foaming technology.

Polyurethane foam can be dyed in different colors according to your needs. Due to the high porosity of melamine foam, uneven dyeing is easy to occur. Therefore, most melamine foam manufacturers can only produce white and gray colors. SINOYQX can also provide you with macaron-colored melamine foam with uniform colors, such as blue, pink, and yellow.

To sum up, melamine foam and polyurethane foam have their own characteristics, and you can choose the foam according to your own uses and needs. SINOYQX is a manufacturer specializing in the production of melamine foam. If you want to know more information or want to purchase melamine foam, you can contact us at any time. SINOYQX looks forward to cooperating with you.

For more information about SINOYQX Melamine Foam, please reach us at [email protected] or voice to us: +86-28-8411-1861.