What is cork?
The cork here is not the coniferous cork in the wood science, but the bark of cork oak. Because of its light and soft texture, it is commonly known as cork. Quercus variabilis is one of the oldest existing tree species in the world, and also the most precious green renewable resources.

As the saying goes: "trees are afraid of peeling". After peeling off the bark, ordinary trees will die soon because they can't absorb nutrients from the roots. But cork trees can peel the bark regularly. Usually cork trees with more than 20 years can be peeled for the first time, and then they can be peeled again every 10 to 20 years. They are excellent renewable environmental protection materials.

Most of the existing cork resources in the world are concentrated in the Mediterranean coastal areas, of which Portugal is the most abundant and the quality is the best. This kind of tree transplantation also exists in Qinling area of China. Although their latitudes are the same, due to the reasons of soil and climate, the thickness of bark is far less than that of the Mediterranean coast, especially the basic properties of bark are quite different, which is inferior to the cork materials of Portugal in elasticity, toughness, color and purity.

II. Introduction to processing methods of cork materials

At present, the processing methods of cork are as follows:
1. Splicing method: several pieces of cork are spliced in a way perpendicular to the bending direction. When splicing, the radian is artificially staggered. This method can produce any radian, and the structure is stable. The problem is that this method wastes materials and will inevitably produce unevenness when splicing, which will affect the use experience.

2. Whole block cutting method: cut a piece of cork into cork shape without any splicing and structure. Because cork is light in weight and raw material volume can be customized, it is allowed to use this method. The body feeling and sitting feeling are also very comfortable, and the bearing capacity is also very high, but the cost of cork and processing equipment is very high, which is not affordable for ordinary families.

3. Skin sticking and wrapping method: similar to the sofa cover, it uses very thin cork as the skin sticking material, and sticks it on the hard plate. Because of the small thickness of the material, it can be bent at any angle, and the adhesive suture can make the effect of sofa suture.

4. Cork bending and folding addition: if the thick cork is bent at a large angle, it will break, but the bending angle can be increased after the thickness of the small cork is cut thin, and this effect can also be made by the folding and stacking of multiple pieces of such cork. But this method uses multi-layer gluing, the glue will harden after it is dried, and multi-layer gluing will make the cork lose its elasticity and its own characteristics.

5. Bending method: after bending the cork to the deformation limit, fix it. The whole piece of cork is used as the sitting board and handrail. And in the load-bearing place with multi-layer cork to increase its strength, in the lower part with structural support. The disadvantage of this method is that too many cork materials are used, and it is a whole piece. In some places, such as the armrest part, it is shaking, so is the backrest part. It is very uncomfortable to sit up.

III. application of cork in furniture industry

Cork, an environmental friendly and renewable material, has been widely used in our life. Cork products, such as cork, cork mats, cork crafts, etc., are often seen in our daily life. Based on its advantages of heat preservation and insulation, sound insulation, antistatic, non-toxic and flame-retardant, soft texture, cork has also been widely used in the field of indoor soft decoration. Taking cork floor as an example, cork floor has been rising and applied in China since 2001, and its sales volume has been growing at a rapid rate of 30% every year.

A series of excellent properties of cork make its application in furniture have unlimited potential. However, due to the limited cork resources and the difficulty of cork processing in China, the related application of this material in furniture has not been widely used.

IV. advantages of cork materials as furniture materials

1. Green environmental protection and development
At present, the concept of color green development is advocated by the state, and the environmental protection characteristics of cork meet the requirements of "green design", conform to the trend of the times, and become the development trend of furniture materials in the future. Cork furniture adopts the bark of Quercus variabilis, which is recyclable and renewable. In the production process, it can effectively ensure the maximum use of materials, and the production process will not produce harmful substances. In the era of serious damage to the environment and excessive consumption of resources, renewable design of materials is a hot topic. Taiwan designers designed a kind of cork furniture, named "pushpin", which uses the shape of pushpin for reference in appearance and adopts the strengthened cork material to enhance the stability. This kind of cork furniture can even reach 100% recycling, so that the furniture can be reprocessed.

2. Safe and comfortable, natural and simple
The special cellular structure of cork makes cork has the advantages of light weight, flexibility, skid resistance, abrasion resistance, insulation, anti-aging, non-toxic, harmless, fire retardant, sound absorption and shock absorption, making the furniture made of cork soft and comfortable, and it can bring people a sense of safety. The resin and tannin compounds contained in cork cells make cork appear natural yellow. Furniture made of cork often presents the natural color of materials - natural earthy yellow, which highlights the simple and natural characteristics of furniture.

3. Flexible modeling and strong plasticity

In terms of modeling, cork can be molded by itself; it can also be mixed with other materials, such as hot-melt adhesive, and then molded by pressing. The furniture made of cork is flexible and changeable. Based on the special cell structure of cork, the material of cork itself is very strong, elastic, not brittle, not rotten. Designer Carlos Ortega combines origami art, through bending and stamping process, to form different shapes of cork pieces, creating a chair like origami, which is very visually attractive.

Five, advantages

Cork materials are comfortable, soft and various in shape, which shows the irreplaceable advantages of other materials. More importantly, the home products made of cork materials conform to the concept of green design. The bark of cork tree species is renewable, achieving "zero loss of wood resources". The special production process of cork home products can avoid spraying paint and other processes in solid wood furniture Achieve zero release of toxic gas.

Environmental protection and sustainable development are the direction of people's future development. Now the international demand for cork materials is increasing every year. With the gradual enhancement of people's awareness of environmental protection, the application scope and production technology of cork are also greatly improved. Cork will become a new favorite in the field of home furnishing with its incomparable characteristics and internal and external cultivation.

Lidingfa cork Co., Ltd., established in 1999, has developed into a diversified business enterprise integrating processing, production and sales. The company specializes in natural cork shoes, which are made of natural oak (bark) from Portugal and other coastal countries. Without damaging the bark's own environmental protection, the company produces shoes, handbags, stationery and other products that cater to the global demand.

Contact: 13650336501

Official website: http://hhpg.com.cn
Main products: cork shoes, cork pieces, cork leather, cork board, flower synthetic leather, cork crafts, cork furniture, cork mobile phone shell wood grain, wood skin, wood grain