Is the板材 industry at a technological turning point? The industrial development logic behind an internationally leading breakthrough!

2026-08-13 Source: China Wood Industry Network News Department

As the ENF‑level environmental standard has become the industry norm, the panelboard sector has long since moved beyond superficial competition centered solely on formaldehyde emissions. Persistent challenges—such as homogenized price wars, limited environmental performance of single‑type panels, cumulative pollution from whole‑house materials, and poor stability under varying temperature and humidity conditions—continue to hinder the industry’s progress toward higher quality. On August 10, 2026, at the Shandong Xingang Group’s brand‑strategy upgrade launch event, a major industry breakthrough was announced: Xingang’s indoor bionic technology… Plywood The three core products—outdoor bionic marine panels and deformation‑resistant bionic plywood—have been officially recognized by leading experts as reaching an internationally advanced technological level. Zhou Hongsheng, President of the China Forestry Industry Association, presented the certification on site, establishing a new benchmark for bionic technology in the domestic engineered wood panel industry.

This “internationally leading” accolade is no overnight achievement; it stems from Xinjiang’s 34-year commitment to the wood industry, underpinned by a long-term research strategy that leverages deep integration among industry, academia, and research to drive breakthroughs in foundational technologies. Looking back to August 6, the project “Biomimetic High-Strength Waterproof Wood‑Based Composites and the Development of a Production System Based on Industry‑Driven Technological Innovation,” led by Shandong Xinjiang Enterprise Group Co., Ltd. and jointly undertaken with Northeast Forestry University, earned the wood‑panel industry’s first provincial First Prize for Scientific and Technological Progress awarded to an enterprise as the lead institution—marking a pioneering milestone. With these two major honors secured in quick succession, and bolstered by dual authoritative endorsements, Xinjiang has demonstrated that its approach—moving beyond conventional formaldehyde‑removal strategies to reconstruct the underlying material system of wood panels through biomimetic technology—is fully viable. This breakthrough also offers a replicable model for upgrading the entire wood‑processing sector, which has long been mired in an environmental‑sustainability arms race.

Academician-driven empowerment and a three-tier R&D system lay a solid, cutting-edge foundation for bionic technology.

Across China’s panelboard industry, few companies dare to allocate resources to tackle the critical bottleneck of adhesives—the sector’s core raw material. At the heart of Xingang’s breakthrough in research lies the establishment of a comprehensive innovation system that enables continuous iteration and fosters deep integration between industry and academia.

Wei Xiaoxin, Chairman of Xingang Group

In terms of deploying high-end scientific research resources, Chairman Wei Xiaoxin demonstrated far-sighted vision by “three visits to the thatched cottage,” successfully bringing in the academician team led by Academician Li Jian of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and establishing an academician workstation. Meanwhile, Professor Xiao Shaoliang has long been rooted in the production workshop, breaking down barriers between laboratory technologies and large‑scale, ten‑thousand‑ton‑per‑year production lines, thus setting a benchmark for industry‑university‑research collaborative innovation. Leveraging this elite team of experts, Xingang has built a three‑tier R&D system—“one generation in application, one in development, and one in reserve”—gradually advancing its biomimetic adhesive technology from version 1.0 to 3.0. The company has also overcome two longstanding industry challenges: cold‑pressing without formaldehyde and resistance to deformation under high temperature and high humidity. Furthermore, it has launched a biomimetic adhesive technology that uses only water as its solvent and combines antibacterial and moisture‑proof properties, fundamentally eliminating the formaldehyde‑emission risks associated with conventional chemical adhesives—at the very source, even… Cabinet Moreover, even in humid spaces such as bathrooms, there will be no issue of pollutant rebound exceeding the permissible limits.

At the policy level, Xingang’s technological roadmap aligns precisely with the national vision of “greening industries and industrializing green technologies,” firmly anchored in the dual carbon goals of peaking carbon emissions by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2060. Unlike conventional board materials that rely on chemical formulations to reduce formaldehyde through a “subtraction” approach, Xingang’s biomimetic technology adopts a source‑level reconstruction strategy, diminishing dependence on petrochemical feedstocks, delivering low‑carbon emissions across the entire production cycle, and achieving breakthroughs in environmental performance, mechanical strength, and low‑carbon value.

From “a single bionic panel” to the “Bionic Healthy Home,” we have achieved a strategic upgrade across all spaces.

What makes this press conference most transformative for the industry is not only the recognition of technological achievements, but also Xingang’s official announcement of its strategic shift—from a single‑material board manufacturer to a full‑space bionic health‑system service provider—introducing the “Bionic Healthy Home” comprehensive spatial solution and fundamentally addressing the industry’s widespread shortcomings: category‑specific environmental protection coupled with hidden risks throughout the entire home.

Xiao Shaoliang, Professor at Northeast Forestry University and Director of the Xingang Research Institute

In the past, the home‑improvement industry faced clear consumer pain points: wardrobes, kitchen cabinets, wooden doors, wall panels, and flooring were supplied by different vendors; environmental standards for various板材 and adhesives lacked uniformity, leading to the cumulative release of harmful substances; significant variations in temperature and humidity across different spaces caused ordinary板材 to warp and crack; and consumers lacked reliable guidance for making informed purchasing decisions, struggling with four major challenges: distinguishing between high‑quality, eco‑friendly materials, mismatched applications, color discrepancies, and difficulties in verifying product authenticity. To address these dual challenges—both within the industry and for consumers—Xingang simultaneously released the “Xingang Bionic Products Consumer Guide White Paper,” translating complex technical testing metrics into practical, easy‑to‑apply selection criteria and offering a comprehensive, end‑to‑end solution.

Wei Ziming, President of Xingang Group

On the product side, Xingang has established a comprehensive bionic product portfolio that integrates doors, walls, cabinets, and flooring, complemented by self-developed auxiliary materials such as bionic tile adhesives and grouts. Looking ahead, the company plans to further expand into bionic coatings and eco‑friendly water‑based paints, enabling all hard‑finish materials throughout the home to adhere to a unified bionic, formaldehyde‑free health standard and achieving “whole‑home, same‑source protection.” Addressing diverse application scenarios—such as dry indoor environments for wardrobes, humid and high‑temperature conditions for kitchen cabinets, outdoor exposure, and the tendency of wooden doors to warp—Xingang has iteratively refined three major versions of bionic board materials, tailoring specialized solutions to each setting while balancing stability, moisture resistance, and deformation‑prevention. This approach delivers true “all‑type, all‑space, all‑climate” spatial health assurance, tackling two longstanding industry challenges: cumulative pollution from multiple material layers and poor adaptation to regional climate conditions.

On the industrial collaboration front, Xingang has proposed an industry-wide initiative to co‑create a Spatial Health Alliance, bringing together upstream and downstream players in the board‑material, custom‑fit, and accessory sectors to standardize bionic health‑testing protocols. The alliance will establish a transparent, end-to-end traceability system, leverage its own full‑chain smart manufacturing capacity to rigorously control color consistency across boards, and provide comprehensive guidelines for authentic‑product verification. By building a trusted ecosystem for healthy homes across three layers—production, distribution, and consumption—the initiative aims to shift industry competition from low‑price price wars to a battle of technological value.

The Xingang Paradigm: Guiding the Wood Industry’s Next Growth Cycle

At present, the engineered‑board industry is undergoing accelerated consolidation, with low‑end capacity steadily being phased out. Relying solely on the ENF eco‑friendly label and a growth model based on homogeneous products has become unsustainable. The biomimetic approach has emerged as the mainstream path for breaking through market constraints. Xingang is the only domestic leading board manufacturer to have achieved mass production of biomimetic adhesives, won a provincial first‑class science and technology award, developed products that meet international cutting‑edge standards, and integrated these into a comprehensive whole‑home health system. It has seamlessly closed the entire value chain—“basic R&D–mass production and implementation–full‑category expansion–consumer‑standard establishment”—thereby establishing its own distinctive “Xingang Biomimetic Paradigm.”

Zhou Hongsheng, President of the China Forestry Industry Association

At the press conference, Zhou Hongsheng, President of the China Forestry Industry Association, commented that Xingang’s technology innovation—centered on biomimetic adhesives—marks the industry’s official transition from “environmental protection for individual board products” to a new era of “whole‑home system health.”

For the entire wood‑industry sector, Xingang’s recent “internationally leading” certification, provincial first‑prize in science and technology, implementation of its biomimetic healthy‑home strategy, and publication of a consumer‑guidance white paper—these four initiatives together send a clear message: to navigate economic cycles, wood‑industry companies must abandon short‑term marketing arms races, focus on mastering core technologies for foundational raw materials, and pursue collaborative innovation across industry, academia, and research. At the same time, they must move beyond a narrow focus on individual board products, establish unified health standards for the entire home environment, and meet consumers’ deeper aspiration for “a superior living experience” through systematic product offerings and standardized consumption guidelines.

Driven by both the dual carbon strategy and the upgrading of consumer demand, bio-inspired new materials are set to become the next core growth frontier for the wood industry. Leveraging more than three decades of industrial expertise, cutting-edge research led by academicians, and a comprehensive, health‑focused spatial strategy, Xingang has seized the initiative in this emerging field. This not only opens up a new ceiling for its own growth but also provides a replicable, actionable blueprint for the green transformation and upgrading of panel‑manufacturing enterprises nationwide, propelling the entire industry from the “formaldehyde‑free” era into a new stage of development—beyond formaldehyde‑free.

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Editor: Taizi