Abstract: Since water-based wood coatings exist some disadvantages such as relatively low abrasion resistance and hardness compared to solventborne wood coatings, some studies of adding inorganic nano-materials have been explored to address the drawback. In this paper, three types of surface modified nano-materials, namely nano-alumina, nano-silicon dioxide and the mixture of them, were added into the styrene acrylate(SAE)water-based wood coating, respectively. The influences of the different nano-materials, dosages and addition methods on the abrasion resistance and hardness of wood coating were investigated. High abrasion resistance and hardness of the wood coating were observed when the nano-alumina and nano-silicon dioxide were added jointly at a mass ratio of 2:1. With the addition of 1.5% mass fraction of nano-slurry to styrene acrylate latex, the wear-out points of the wood coating film appeared after 2 000 r and the hardness was 2H. The experimental results showed that the addition of inorganic nano-materials with suitable proportion was helpful for improving the abrasion resistance and hardness of water-based wood coatings.