Global adhesives specialist Kleiberit has a history of laying down markers in the wood-based sector.
Across its product portfolio including hotmelts, adhesives, epoxies and sealants, it has built a comprehensive expertise and a global reputation across the wood product manufacturing sector, including manufacturers of panel products, and the furniture and surfacing industries.
WBPI’s visit to the company’s production facility in Weingarten in southern Germany came after a big focus on innovations at the LIGNA fair earlier in the year. Our main topic of discussion centred on HotCoating, the successful surface finishing technology that involves applying a hot reactive PUR mass, with market-leading performance in scratch resistance, surface finish and durability.
It was also a chance to catch up with managing director Dr Helmut Meffert about how markets are performing and the latest development plans from Kleiberit.
Mr Meffert, who has a polymer chemist background and formerly worked at BASF, assumed the role of the managing director in 2022, reported that Kleiberit had bucked the trend in the 2025 by increasing its annual volumes, even the relevant markets for adhesives are under price pressure, also for Kleiberit.
“The increase in volume is a good signal that means customers like our products,” he said. “We are at the same volume level in 2025 as 2022, which was a record year for volume.”
He sees an increasing trend of Chinese manufacturers exporting final products as their own market cools, creating additional price pressure issues.
This is where Kleiberit has major development news – the establishment of a factory to produce PUR Hotmelts in China, which will be Kleiberit’s second global production site after Germany.
This decision allows Kleiberit to have local production closer to customers in the region and will target the Asian market first.
Mr Meffert said North American tariffs had created uncertainty but was not a problem now, as prices could be increased to match the 15% tariffs. Exports to the US were complicated due to packaging in steel drums, as metals were also subject to tax.
Price pressure is most prevalent in Europe and Asia.
The removal of markets in Russia and Belarus because of final sanctions causes cost efficiency measures. “The market is not easy at the moment,” he said. “The long-term strategy is to see future growth in Europe again and plan to expand production here in Weingarten.”
HOTCOATING
Kleiberit’s Jens Fandrey, Technical Director, HotCoating and Surface Technology and Rainer Kampwerth, Director Sales, PUR HotCoating & Industrial Coatings, both updated on important trends with HotCoating.
HotCoating, of course, has had a revolutionary impact since its market introduction in 2008. The reactive PUR technology’s impact on surface finishing has been evident across a wide range of applications for years, including furniture and flooring industries to outdoor applications such as facades, decking, and outdoor furniture.
Its properties of scratch, UV, and weather resistance, combined with easy processing and high-gloss and super-matte finishes, have a legion of followers globally. The HotCoating is melted in a pre-melting unit and applied with a heated roller system using reversing rollers or roller bar nozzles. A liquid varnish – usually a UV-curing, acryl-functional varnish – is then applied on top, as either a base or topcoat.
Mr Kampwerth reported on some notable HotCoating projects among key customers.
“We are seeing an increasing number of global customers investing in their second HotCoating line,” he said. “It’s nice to see as it means the business model is working, the value-adding is amazing, some customers say it’s their best investment ever.”
HotCoating, he added, had opened up an increased number of export markets for some of our customers, who are exporting themselves now to their international customers, compared to about half that previously.
“HotCoating is the best technology to create adhesion on melamine. When you are sending a container of products to another country you need to be absolutely sure of the surface adhesion and scratch resistance to be sure everything goes well in transit.
“Some important customers in Europe, India or South Africa upgraded the first line with an Excimer to run supermatte finish and invested in a second new line for High Gloss.
The volume of some customer demands causes line operations of 24/7, delivering to their markets.
“India is a growth market with a huge demand of panel products. We already are present in this region and there are potential projects in the pipeline.
“In all, about 75 HotCoating lines are operating globally, also covering regions such as North America, South America and Europe.”
LIGNA saw some further innovative updates for HotCoating. Kleiberit unveiled another innovation: a world-first roll-to-roll system capable of coating sheet materials with thicknesses up to 12mm. This high performance industrial machine, with a working width of up to 1600mm, achieves processing speeds of up to 60 meters per minute.
Live at the exhibition, visitors saw the coating of flooring materials produced by Swiss HotCoating user LICO, using recycled leather scraps from industrial waste streams.
The resulting sustainable flooring product consists of approximately 55% leather fibers, 25% natural rubber as a binder, 10% water, and 10% plant-based oils. The same 1600 mm HotCoating system can also be used for paper or thermoplastic films, opening new possibilities for cladding large-format, three dimensional elements such as door panels.
Kleiberit also showed visitors HotCoating dualcure, combining the benefits of moisture-curing coatings with photochemical curing – in milliseconds, giving advantages in stacking.
“We are not riding waves, we are making waves,” said Mr Fandrey.
He said the Roll-to-Roll system demonstrated at LIGNA helped visualise and demonstrate trends of using soft, warm recyclable materials. “Our goal was to demonstrate the whole package – the coating, the core material, and the chemistry.”
The flooring industry, added Mr Fandrey, was increasingly looking at HotCoating technology.
“Flooring manufacturers have had such a volume reduction that they have to do something different. The birthplace of HotCoating was in the flooring sector, but it was two-layer parquet, then we focused on the furniture industry with the melamine adhesion in supermatte, high gloss and adding value.
“Now it seems we have a revival of the flooring sector, with the trends of modern flooring which is to be modern and soft.”
Mr Fandrey said laminate flooring manufacturers had been particularly hit in recent years, with big falls in demand and sales. Companies needed to have new solutions against alternative material based SPC and LVT products.
“We do have projects now with big flooring companies to provide alternatives to SPC and LVT, but using renewable substrate materials, like HDF. So, they can get the attributes and characteristics of LVT – deep texture, good optics, and a natural appearance which people like. – but without the plastic. The HotCoating can be used with or without digital printing in the solution.”
Mr Fandrey explained that the solution is a premium product but costs less than LVT or foil lamination.
Applications for exterior products with HotCoating are a growing market, creating a lot of interest among suppliers and architects. At LIGNA 2023 the company demonstrated exterior decking using HotCoating.
“This whole topic is gaining importance,” said Mr Fandrey. “People do not want just four colours of decking – grey, green, black and brown. The architect ideal is one floor from internal to exterior, that is their dream.”
The decking producer supplying the product is still in the stage of rolling out the product, but it believes the solution has big potential.
Such applications showcase the durability of HotCoating. Indeed, at Kleiberit’s own production facility, the decking product is used in an external area used daily by hundreds of staff. After three years, it still looks “perfect”, says Mr Fandrey.
Mr Kampwerth said the market background of reduced housing and construction, flooring producers shutting down laminating lines and generally reduced capacities had meant customers were looking for new solutions for the market.
“They are all now willing to listen. Laminate producers are interested because of what their customers are saying.”
The whole trend towards Bio-based and recycled products and away from plastic is another important trend feature which benefits an HDF-based solution with HotCoating solution.
A further application for HotCoating is for flooring for commercial vehicles as an alternative to film-faced plywood.
HotCoating gives the possibility for a solid colour top coating for a truck floor, with high levels of durability. Some applications have been completed in Eastern Europe.
Building facades are also a very important application because of the unique properties of HotCoating.
Meanwhile, some HPL customers in Europe and Asia are producing HPL Compact with a HotCoating instead of using laminated acrylic sheets for several reasons, including cost-effectiveness and scratch-resistance.
In summary, the HotCoating technology is expanding its base of applications, and we can expect to see its use in an ever widening field of products in the future, with flooring manufacturers increasingly seeing opportunities at the moment.
