Description

Wood adhesives are adhesive types used to bond wooden substrates to other wooden or non-wooden substrates. They find important applications in the manufacture of wood products in end-use industries primarily furniture, building & construction, shipbuilding, arts & crafts, and sports & entertainment. These key end-use industries pertaining to consumption of wood adhesives have been considered during the course of the research study conducted at a global level.

Wood adhesives find applications for a variety of substrates such as LDF, MDF, HDF, OSB, plywood panels, CLT and LVL, which have been discussed in detail in this report. The main resin chemistries used for formulation of wood adhesives are also discussed in the report and mainly comprise urea-formaldehyde-based, melamine-urea-formaldehyde-based, melamine-formaldehyde-based, phenol-formaldehyde-based, isocyanate-based, polyurethane-based, polyolefin-based, polyamide-based, ethyl vinyl acetate-based and polyvinyl acetate-based resin chemistries.

Key challenges facing wood adhesives manufacturers and end-users are long-term conformations to emission regulations and developing products with commercially attractive price-to-performance ratios. Manufacturers have also been strategizing to provide superior technical support to customers to help improve adhesive application efficiency and also the bonding quality.

There has been a rapid growth in the economies of China, India and Latin American countries, leading to a rapid increase in the purchasing power of the respective populations. This has been leading to a rapid growth of the furniture and building & construction industries in China, India, and Southeast Asian countries. This has also been resulting in a spurt in demand for wood products used for manufacture in these industries, and thereby for wood adhesives. A similar fast growth has been observed for these industries in Brazil, Mexico, Chile, and Argentina in Latin America as well.

A lower adhesive weight-per-wood weight ratio or the demonstration of special properties has been helping to aid premium pricing of specific wood adhesive products that has been driving the market size of wood adhesives by revenue. The rate of curing of the wood adhesive, the ease of its application, and the versatility of a single wood adhesive product to bond multiple varieties of wood substrate types and species have been important criteria for the costing of wood adhesive products. Also, the ability of the wood adhesive to display enough tack to ensure strength for handling the wood composite prior to final bonding is also an important product characteristic needed to gain competitive advantage.

Asia Pacific is the largest market for wood adhesives with large-scale manufacturing of low-cost furniture products in China, India, and Southeast Asia and a simultaneous proliferation of the regional building & construction industry. Hence, major global wood adhesive manufacturers such as Henkel Adhesive Technologies, BASF SE, and Georgia-Pacific Chemicals LLC have been focusing on strengthening and augmenting their sales & distribution channels in this region.