China Home Expo has learned that on June 1, 2026, the new mandatory national standard GB18580-2025 for wood-based panels officially came into effect. The new standard upgrades the mandatory formaldehyde threshold for panels to E0 grade, replacing the long-standing E1 grade, while retaining ENF as the highest environmental classification—establishing a rigorous eco-friendly panel grading system.

Prior to the new regulation's implementation, domestic panel environmental standards were chaotic, with a confusing array of standards and brand concepts that not only misled consumers but also fostered false advertising and destructive price competition. This national standard unifies testing, grading, and labeling protocols, with E0 as the hard entry baseline, eliminating low-end inferior capacity and cleaning up industry hype. The tiered system of E0 as the floor and ENF as the advanced tier has successfully propelled the industry away from price competition and into a healthy development phase centered on formaldehyde-free, high-quality products.

However, the new national standard only regulates the single formaldehyde indicator of the base material, serving merely as the industry's minimum baseline and failing to address whole-home environmental needs. The standard only tests individual panels at 23°C room temperature, with no control over carcinogenic substances such as benzene series and TVOC, nor does it regulate auxiliary materials like veneers, edge banding, and adhesives—disconnecting from complex real-life home scenarios. This is precisely why numerous homes built with compliant panels still harbor living safety hazards.

Currently, the industry faces three core environmental shortcomings: panel formaldehyde compliance does not equate to whole-home safety, as auxiliary material pollution poses risks to the elderly, pregnant women, and children; single-panel testing compliance does not mean whole-home compliance, as dense panel installation can cause cumulative pollutant exceedance; room-temperature compliance does not guarantee safety at all times, as summer heat and winter underfloor heating accelerate the release of harmful substances, concealing health risks.

According to industry data, 90% of home decoration panel pollution originates from adhesives, making technological innovation the fundamental solution to environmental pain points. Panel adhesives have undergone multiple iterations, with traditional formaldehyde-containing adhesives, modified adhesives, and ordinary formaldehyde-free adhesives all exhibiting clear shortcomings. The domestically developed fourth-generation biomimetic eco-friendly adhesive, winner of the Gold Award in Wood Industry at the Geneva International Invention Exhibition, uses pure water as a solvent, eliminating formaldehyde, benzene, TVOC, and other harmful substances at the source—breaking through the industry bottleneck where environmental performance and product performance could not be simultaneously achieved.

This biomimetic eco-friendly adhesive possesses exceptional comprehensive advantages, achieving near-zero pollutant release and meeting infant-and-maternity-grade environmental standards. It adapts to high-temperature environments and high-density whole-home customization scenarios, maintaining ENF-grade standards even when panel usage doubles. Panel brands leveraging this core technology have broken through against the tide, achieving growth exceeding 70% amid a sluggish industry growth environment.

The new national standard is the industry's development baseline, not its endpoint. As consumer health demands continue to escalate, high-end panels are no longer limited to base material compliance but pursue eco-friendliness across the entire process of adhesives, veneers, and edge banding, while also balancing practical performance such as heat resistance and moisture protection. In the future, full-chain, full-scenario, all-dimensional eco-friendly panels will become the market mainstream. Technology-driven industrial upgrading will continue to propel high-quality development in the home industry, building healthy and safe living spaces for families. 

Source: weixin