Innovatively Developing the "Jinjiang Experience"
From April 19 to 22, the 27th China (Jinjiang) International Footwear & Sports Industry Expo was held in full swing. As a premier annual platform for shoe materials and shoemaking technologies, this edition highlights key trends from material innovation to intelligent manufacturing.
Haifeng closely monitors industry technological developments. Taking this opportunity, we are pleased to introduce our core technological achievements and mature application solutions in polyurethane spraying for footwear.
Polyurethane Spraying: From Process Innovation to Value Upgrade
Polyurethane spraying enables integral color molding, in which color paste is uniformly dispersed within the material, ensuring no peeling or discoloration. The coating offers 3–5 times the wear resistance of ordinary rubber and far superior scratch resistance compared to conventional paint.For environmental performance: the water-based system has a VOC level ≤ 50 g/L, and the solvent-free system achieves near-zero emissions. The process supports diverse surface finishes (high-gloss/matte, smooth/textured), delivering high design flexibility.
Realizing these material properties requires precise processing to ensure consistency for every shoe sole. The spraying process offers clear advantages in terms of thickness uniformity, curved-surface coverage and production efficiency.
Spraying Process Strengths
Pore-Free Surface
With high-pressure atomization and 3D trajectory coverage by robotic arms, air in the coating is fully released during application. A dense surface forms after layer-by-layer deposition, with porosity near zero. This is critical for enhancing water resistance, stain resistance and tactile quality in high-end shoe materials.
High Density & High Performance
The spraying process creates high-density hardened layers in targeted sole areas, with cross-linking density significantly higher than the base material. It enables local reinforcement on sole edges or anti-slip lugs while keeping other areas flexible.
This supports the PU shoe material lightweighting strategy: low-density spraying or foaming reduces weight in non-load-bearing zones, while local high-density spraying ensures wear resistance and structural support.
Synergy with Supercritical & Injection Molding
In high-end footwear production, supercritical technology is widely used for midsole foaming, yet the surface is porous and prone to wear. Spraying applies a dense, wear-resistant coating to supercritical midsoles without compromising core-layer elasticity.
For injection-molded frames or complex structures, spraying fills curved details hard to cover by injection and enables gradient coating in hardness-transition zones.
Automation for Cost Reduction
Robotic arms enable continuous spraying; each shoe sole takes only 3 minutes from raw material to finished part, eliminating manual gluing. Disc machines or inline systems are available to match diverse capacity needs.
From Single Machine to Full Line: Practical End-to-End Solutions
We deliver not just standalone machines, but complete end-to-end solutions covering raw material proportioning, mixing, spraying path planning, curing monitoring and quality traceability.
To fit the multi-variety, small-batch nature of footwear manufacturing, the system integrates an intelligent parameter library. Operators can recall spraying recipes for different shoe styles with one click, cutting changeover time to under 5 minutes. We also support fast integration with existing conveyors and robotic arms, maximizing customers’ current production investments.
Footwear Solution Modules
- Raw Material Proportioning & Mixing: Dual-component high-precision metering system, compatible with polyurethane systems of varying viscosities and reaction rates.
- Spraying Path Planning: Auto-generates robotic trajectories from 3D shoe models, covering complex curves and edge dead zones.
- Quick Changeover System: Parametric recipe library with changeover within 5 minutes, ideal for multi-variety small-batch production.
- Online Quality Monitoring: Integrated thickness detection and visual feedback, adjusting parameters in real time to lower defect rates.
Welcome to Inquire & Explore Technical Details
Our technical team is available throughout the Jinjiang Footwear Expo. If you are interested in precision polyurethane spraying for footwear manufacturing, or need a process evaluation report for specific shoe components, please contact us to discuss cooperation.Let us jointly explore more innovative applications and pathways to cost reduction and efficiency improvement with polyurethane.
Industry expos eventually conclude, but our pursuit of process excellence never stops. We look forward to partnering with forward-thinking footwear enterprises to validate the real value of advanced technology.
