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On July 1, 2026, China’s National Organosilicon Industry Green Manufacturing Conference was held in Bengbu, Anhui Province. At the conference, the country’s first full green production line for phenyl-modified silicone oil adopting a continuous closed-loop production process was officially launched. Through the full-process reconstruction of the traditional batch production process, this production line has realized near-zero emission of organic solvents during production, reducing the unit product energy consumption by 62% compared with traditional processes, and cutting three-waste emissions by 91%. The carbon emission intensity of the whole process is far lower than the requirements of the EU’s latest Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism for organosilicon products, providing a replicable benchmark model for the green upgrading of China’s phenyl-modified silicone oil industry. Against the backdrop of global low-carbon transformation in the manufacturing sector, this process innovation not only solves the long-standing industry pain points of high energy consumption and high pollution in phenyl-modified silicone oil production, but also pushes the entire industry to fully shift from the "scale expansion" development model to a brand new stage of "green and high-quality" development.
The traditional production of phenyl-modified silicone oil has long adopted the traditional batch hydrolysis-polymerization process, which requires a large amount of organic solvents as reaction carriers during production. Not only does the hydrolysis process generate a large volume of acidic wastewater containing siloxane, but the purification process after polymerization also produces a large amount of hard-to-recover low-boiling by-products. Under the traditional process, for every 1 ton of phenyl-modified silicone oil produced, 1.2 tons of organic solvents are consumed, generating more than 3 tons of wastewater and 0.8 tons of solid hazardous waste. This not only keeps production energy consumption persistently high, but also makes environmental treatment costs account for more than 35% of the total production cost, becoming a core bottleneck restricting the large-scale and healthy development of the phenyl-modified silicone oil industry. For a long time in the past, many domestic phenyl silicone oil manufacturers, limited by process technology, have been unable to get rid of the "high energy consumption, high emission" production dilemma. Some enterprises were even forced to reduce or suspend production due to failure to meet environmental protection standards, making the green transformation of the entire industry extremely urgent.
To solve this common industry problem, domestic R&D teams spent 8 years completing more than 1200 rounds of pilot tests, and innovatively developed a full-process green process system integrating continuous phase hydrolysis of phenylchlorosilane, solvent-free bulk polymerization, and membrane separation coupled with multi-stage short-path distillation purification. In the hydrolysis section, the team abandoned the traditional aqueous phase hydrolysis process and adopted the brand-new technology of "continuous organic phase circulating hydrolysis". By precisely controlling the micro-interface contact reaction between phenylchlorosilane and water, the conversion rate of the hydrolysis reaction was increased to over 99.5%, while 100% of the hydrogen chloride generated during hydrolysis was recovered and directly converted into industrial-grade concentrated hydrochloric acid for external sales, completely eliminating the source of acidic wastewater discharge. In the polymerization section, the brand-new solvent-free bulk polymerization process completely eliminates organic solvents such as toluene and xylene used in traditional processes. Through the precise regulation of a new type of composite catalyst, controllable ring-opening polymerization of polysiloxane with different phenyl contents is realized. The polymerization reaction time is shortened from the original 24 hours to 3 hours, the energy consumption during the reaction process is reduced by 70%, and the influence of solvent residue on product purity is completely avoided. In the post-treatment purification section, the team coupled membrane separation technology with multi-stage short-path distillation technology, realizing the efficient removal of low-molecular-weight cyclic siloxanes in the polymer product. The content of low-volatile substances in the product can be stably controlled below 500ppm, far lower than the 1000ppm threshold required by international standards. Meanwhile, the removed low-boiling substances can be directly recycled as production raw materials and re-invested into the reaction, raising the overall raw material utilization rate from 65% of the traditional process to over 98%.
After the full implementation of this brand-new green process, the industrial transformation effect it brings is rapidly emerging. This new production line located in Bengbu, Anhui Province, relying on the complete supporting facilities of the local silicon-based new material industrial cluster, has realized fully enclosed continuous operation of the whole process from the feeding of phenylsilane monomers to the output of finished phenyl-modified silicone oil. The automation control level of the production line has reached the internationally leading level, and the number of operators in the entire production workshop is only 1/10 of that of the traditional production line of the same scale. The batch stability of products has been greatly improved, with the viscosity error of different batches of products controlled within ±2%, and the fluctuation range of phenyl content less than 0.5%, completely solving the industry pain point of large performance differences between different batches of products in traditional batch processes. From the full life cycle carbon footprint accounting data, the carbon emission per ton of phenyl-modified silicone oil produced by the green process is only 1.2 tons, less than one-third of the carbon emission of the traditional process, which fully meets the requirements of the EU CBAM regulations, clearing carbon barrier obstacles for Chinese phenyl silicone oil products to enter the high-end European and American markets on a large scale.
Feedback from downstream application sectors is also very positive. Many high-end optical material enterprises indicate that the low-volatility phenyl-modified silicone oil produced by the green process will not cause condensation and precipitation of small molecule volatiles inside the lens when used as damping filling material for high-end lenses, completely solving the long-standing industry problem of "lens fogging" that has plagued the optical industry for decades, and extending the service life of products by more than 3 times. In the new energy wind power sector, the 3-year continuous operation tracking test data of high-temperature resistant phenyl-modified silicone oil produced by the green process, used as insulating cooling oil for wind power transformers in the extreme high-temperature environment of the Gobi Desert in northwest China, shows that the kinematic viscosity change rate of the insulating oil is less than 3%, without any precipitation or acidification phenomenon, fully meeting the service life requirement of more than 20 years for wind power equipment.
Industry experts point out that the large-scale promotion of this green synthesis process will completely reconstruct the competitive landscape of China’s phenyl-modified silicone oil industry. In the next 3 years, more than 70% of the traditional phenyl silicone oil production capacity in China will complete green upgrading, and the annual carbon emission reduction of the entire industry will exceed 1.2 million tons. At the same time, it will drive the simultaneous reduction of product carbon footprints in multiple downstream industries such as electronics and electrical appliances, optics, and new energy, forming a full-chain green manufacturing system from basic materials to end products. Against the backdrop of the "Dual Carbon" strategy, the green transformation of the phenyl-modified silicone oil industry not only provides an excellent reference sample for the low-carbon development of China’s fine chemical industry, but also further enhances the core competitiveness of China’s organosilicon industry in the global market, steadily pushing China to transform from a major organosilicon producer to a strong organosilicon manufacturing country.
