On March 29, 2010, Prof. Jin Zhu’s research team from NIMTE (CAS) signed a cooperation agreement with Bayi Industrial Co., Ltd to industrialize the research achievement of “Bio-based Formaldehyde-free Wood Binder”. Mr. Erwei Shi, vice-present of Chinese Academy Sciences (CAS) and Ms. Hongyi Yu, deputy mayor of Ningbo both attended the singing ceremony.

At present, most kinds of wood binders involves aldehyde, they are urea-formaldehyde binder, phenol aldehyde binder and melamine-formaldehyde binder. The main raw materials of wood binders are formaldehyde. As we all know, formaldehyde which is with strong pungent smell has been defined as carcinogen by World Health Organization. A research shows that the indoor formaldehyde pollution mainly come from wood binders paintings used on furniture and building decoration. The releasing time of formaldehyde even can last 3-15 years. The sole feasible approach to solve indoor pollution is use no-formaldehyde releasing wood binder to avoid air pollution caused by formaldehyde releasing.

Several days ago, a new standard of formaldehyde emission even more severe than E1 was proposed by CARB. This proposal may become a federal regulation to carry out in US. With technologies developing, wood binders with formaldehyde releasing will be replaced by this formaldehyde-free wood binder.  This variation could possibly change the pattern of international trade in furniture industry fundamentally.

With many years’ efforts, Prof. Jin Zhu made great achievements. The production process of bio-based wood binder with no formaldehyde releasing is very simple and the cost is low. The successful transfer of the project will benefit wood binders production industry and hoping that this project is just the solution of furniture formaldehyde pollution.