[7][8] Melamine is, therefore, unrelated etymologically to the root melas (μέλας, meaning 'black' in Greek), from which the words melanin, a pigment, and melatonin, a hormone, are formed.

Sulfonated melamine formaldehyde (SMF) is a polymer used as a cement admixture to reduce the water content in concrete while increasing the fluidity and the workability of the mix during 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 lifetime.

[13] A melamine fiber, Basofil, has low thermal conductivity, excellent flame resistance and is self-extinguishing; this makes it useful for flame-resistant protective clothing, either alone or as a blend with other fibres.

In culture, Raoultella terrigena, which rarely colonizes mammalian intestines,[25] was shown to convert melamine to cyanuric acid directly.

A toxicology study in animals conducted after recalls of contaminated pet food concluded that the combination of melamine and cyanuric acid in diet does lead to acute kidney injury in cats.

[29] A 2008 study produced similar experimental results in rats and characterized the melamine and cyanuric acid in contaminated pet food from the 2007 outbreak.

[36] A survey commissioned by the American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians suggested that crystals formed in the kidneys when melamine combined with cyanuric acid, "don't dissolve easily.

Crystallization and washing of melamine generates a considerable amount of waste water, which may be concentrated into a solid (1.5–5% of the weight) for easier disposal.

Melamine is part of the core structure for a number of drugs including almitrine, altretamine, cyromazine, ethylhexyl triazone, iscotrizinol, meladrazine, melarsomine, melarsoprol, tretamine, trinitrotriazine, and others.

As a result of the Chinese milk scandal, court trials began in December 2008 for six people involved in adding melamine in food products, ending in January 2009 with two of the convicts being sentenced to death and executed.

[51][52][53] In March 2007, the US Food and Drug Administration reported finding white granular melamine in the pet food, in samples of white granular wheat gluten imported from a single source in China, Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology[54] as well as in crystalline form in the kidneys and in urine of affected animals.

[58] Another recall incident in 2007 involved melamine which had been purposely added as a binder to fish and livestock feed manufactured in the United States.

[60][61][62] In a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, it was reported that melamine exposure increased the incidence of urinary tract stones by seven times in children.

[citation needed] In October 2008, "Select Fresh Brown Eggs" exported to Hong Kong from the Hanwei Group in Dalian in northeastern China were found to be contaminated with nearly twice the legal limit of melamine.

York Chow, the health secretary of Hong Kong, said he thought animal feeds might be the source of the contamination and announced that the Hong Kong Centre for Food Safety would henceforward be testing all mainland Chinese pork, farmed fish, animal feed, chicken meat, eggs, and offal products for melamine.

[68][69] On characterization and treatment of urinary stones in affected infants, The New England Journal of Medicine printed an editorial in March 2009, along with reports on cases from Beijing, Hong Kong and Taipei.

"Our results suggest a need for further follow-up of affected children to evaluate the possible long-term impact on health, including renal function.

Following the deaths of children in China from powdered milk in 2008, the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission in Belgium set up a website about methods to detect melamine.

[75] 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.

[78] The existing methods for melamine determination using a triple quadrupole liquid chromatography – mass spectrometry (LC/MS) after solid phase extraction (SPE) are often complex and time-consuming.

[79] Ultrasound-assisted extractive electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (EESI-MS) has been developed at ETH Zurich (Switzerland) by Zhu, Chingin et al., (2008)[80] for a rapid detection of melamine in untreated food samples.

[81] Huang et al. (2008) have also developed at Purdue University (US) a simpler instrumentation and a faster method by using a low-temperature plasma probe to ionize the samples.

[82] The Melaminometer[83][84][85] was a hypothetical design for a synthetic biology circuit, to be used for detecting melamine and related chemical analogues such as cyanuric acid.

The conceptual project is hosted at OpenWetWare as open source biology in collaboration with DIYbio and has been discussed in various newspapers in the context of homebrew biotechnology.

[87] The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) provides a test method for analyzing cyromazine and melamine in animal tissues.

[88][89] In 2007, the FDA began using a high performance liquid chromatography test to determine the melamine, ammeline, ammelide, and cyanuric acid contamination in food.

The presence of melamine in urine specimens from children who consumed adulterated milk products has been determined by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry.

[94] It is reported that melamine molecules adsorbed on gold[95] or silver[96] surface tend to arrange into honeycomb or closed-packed structures.