phenol c adding a boron salt to the reaction vessel containing the formaldehyde and the phenol and the base d heating the reaction vessel to generate the alkaline phenol formaldehyde resin in other embodiments of the invention the alkaline phenol formaldehyde resin composition made by the above listed processes are also within the scope of the instant invention it is understood that any of the above listed processes and or compositions can be modified in many ways including some of the illustrative following ways the boron salt of the invention is preferably selected from amongst sodium potassium lithium ammonium magnesium calcium or beryllium boron salts or any combination of these salts e g magnesium calcium boron salts with the boron salts more preferably selected form amongst ammonium lithium potassium or sodium boron salts and even more preferably selected from amongst ammonium lithium potassium or sodium borate salts and most preferably selected from sodium tetraborate salts it is possible to form the necessary boron salt in situ by reacting boric acid h 3 bo 3 or borax na 2 b 4 o 7 10h 2 o with an alkali metal hydroxide such as sodium hydroxide or any of the other corresponding alkali metal hydroxides neutralizing each mol of boric acid requires one mol of alkali metal hydroxide while neutralizing each mol of borax requires two mols of hydroxide to form the metaborate salts it must be remembered that the hydroxide needed to neutralize the borate source is in addition to that needed to maintain alkaline conditions in the.