China has a long history of development in wood coatings. After the reform and opening up, the coating of wood furniture has greatly improved and developed rapidly. But after the international financial crisis, the growth of the wood coatings market slowed down and must rely on new technologies, processes, and products to restore vitality.
Wood coatings refer to the coatings used on wooden products, including furniture, doors and windows, wall panels, flooring, children's toys, etc. They can be simply divided into furniture wood coatings and home decoration wood coatings. If classified by coating type, it can be divided into solvent based coatings, water-based coatings, and solvent-free coatings; Coatings can be classified into natural resin and synthetic resin based on film-forming substances.
Wood coatings are important raw materials in furniture manufacturing. According to the "Analysis Report on Investment Strategy Planning of China's Wood Coatings Industry" provided by Forward Industry Research Institute, wood coatings in China account for approximately 15% -20% of the total coatings. In 2014, the production of wood coatings in China was 1.44 million tons; From 2010 to 2014, the average annual compound growth rate was 4.97%.
At present, the environmental pressure on the coating industry is increasing day by day, and the country has issued multiple policies and regulations to restrict it, which has also had a significant impact on wood coatings. However, even with the increasing environmental requirements, wood coatings made from solvent based synthetic resins still dominate.
According to the above report data, solvent based wood coatings are the absolute mainstream in the market, accounting for over 95%. This is mainly because solvent based wood coatings have excellent construction performance, outstanding physical and chemical properties, and high comprehensive cost-effectiveness. However, their disadvantages cannot be ignored, such as containing VOCs, polluting the environment, being flammable and explosive, and damaging the health of painters.
Relatively speaking, after years of development, the market acceptance of water-based wood coatings is not high due to consumption habits, painting environment, lotion price and other factors. With the improvement of environmental regulations and the awakening of environmental awareness, the demand for water-based wood coatings is expected to grow rapidly.
Developed countries such as the United States, Europe, and Japan have now explicitly banned the use of solvent based wood coatings to reduce their environmental impact. In the future, China is likely to follow suit due to environmental pressures. Prior to this, the government, furniture companies, and coating companies jointly promoted the development of water-based wood coatings.
Therefore, from the perspective of development trends, water-based wood coatings are the main direction of development in the field of wood coatings, and are expected to replace solvent based wood coatings with clean and environmentally friendly characteristics in the future.
In addition, before there is a significant improvement in product performance, new technologies and processes need to be applied to stimulate demand growth in order to bring wood coatings back to the upward trend.