News

The 13th European Wood-Based Panel Symposium was held in Hamburg on October 10 and 11.
The event is biennial and is organized by the Fraunhofer Institute WKI and the European Panel Federation (EPF) in cooperation with the International Association for Technical Issues Related to Wood (iVTH).
About 370 people attended the event, which featured 20 presentations made by experts and specialists in the field.
They ranged from the market situation to future regulatory developments, moving from resins and additives to the state of the art of manufacturing with recycled material and how artificial intelligence can be used in production facilities.

Among the speakers was Sandro Ciroi from CATAS, who jumped at the request and opportunity to experience a two-part presentation with Bettina Meyer from Fraunhofer WKI.
The topic presented was about the regulatory developments that will take place in August 2026 in Europe, when the new formaldehyde release restriction of the REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restrictions of Chemicals) Regulation, one of the most stringent chemical laws in the world, comes into effect.
To keep the level of attention high, given the tough topic, the two speakers opted for an interview mode presentation, where each one asked questions to the other, equally dividing ten topics related to future regulatory development.

They then talked about the path taken so far by the Regulation, how the restriction for formaldehyde was generated, which articles are involved and which are excluded.
In addition, they brought to the attention of the audience the existence of a (voluntary) working group, formed by the main European laboratories of the wood furniture sector, which is working on a Position Paper to detail all the technical specifications not present in the Regulation, with the aim of bringing harmonization to the activities in the different countries and to give factual support to the production realities.
Finally, they also tried to cast an eye further ahead, trying to imagine future developments, because the topic of formaldehyde has remained in the forefront for many years, and, despite this, it never seems to go out of fashion!

One change from the October conference came these days: we were awaiting the publication by the European Chemicals Agency (the entity that wrote REACH) of the revised guidelines for measuring formaldehyde release.
This document, which is in the working stage, is highly eagerly awaited by all stakeholders, but the revision scheduled for October has been delayed, with the expectation (or the hope?) that it can be produced by the end of 2024.


For info:
Sandro Ciroi
+39 0432 747235
ciroi@catas.com