Overview of the Wood Adhesives Industry in China

Adhesives products and demand for them in China are discussed in this paper with special emphasis on wood adhesives products in this decade. In 1994, the wood industries in China consumed more than 330,000 tons of adhesives. The estimated demand for wood adhesives will be more than 560,000 tons in the year 2000. The main wood adhesive used is urea-formaldehyde resin. Its consumption in 1994. was approximately 90 percent of the total wood adhesives market. The production capacity of formaldehyde will continue to be the main factor affecting the growth of the wood adhesives industry Introduction China’s economy continues to grow at a fast clip, expanding 9.5 percent in 1996. As a result, both residential and commercial construction continue to boom, predominantly in urban areas. Demand for wood for building and construction, as well as furniture and paper products, is growing. Composite panel production reached 6.6 million m3 in 1994, and is estimated to w to 9.5 million Y m3 in 2000 and 13.5 million m in 2010. Consequentlx the demand for wood adhesives is also growing. This paper presents an overview of the most recent developments of the adhesive industry in China. Hu: Principal Wood Scientist, USDA Forest Sew., Soutkm Res. Sta.. PineviNe, La 48 .’ Hse Adhesives consumption Most panel production plants have in-house resin manufacturing facilities to produce resin adhesives for their own use, which are considered as an integrated part of plant operation. There is no organization that collects wood adhesives production data for the nation. The few published data on resin consumption are mostly derived from computations based on panel production. Table 1 shows one such tabulation based on recently published data on wood adhesives ( 15). In 1994, approximately 90 percent of woodbased panels were bonded with urea-formaldehyde (UF) adhesives. Production trends in this segment of industry suggest UF resin consumpTab& I.-Estimated wood adhesives consumption in China.