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In July 2026, a key industrialization progress was announced in China's special organosilicon materials sector: the high vinyl content vinyl silicone oil, custom-developed for aerospace-grade silicone rubber, new-generation photovoltaic encapsulant and high-end electronic potting systems, has officially completed the full-process stability operation assessment of the 10,000-ton mass production line. All core performance indicators of the product have comprehensively surpassed the benchmark line of similar international products, completely breaking the nearly 25-year technological monopoly of overseas enterprises in the field of high-activity special vinyl silicone oil. This breakthrough not only fills the core raw material gap of domestic downstream high-end organosilicon materials, but also directly promotes the historic leap of China's entire silicone rubber industrial chain from "mid-to-low-end scale expansion" to "high-end performance leadership", building a solid key foundation for the material independence and controllability of national strategic industries such as aerospace, new energy and advanced semiconductors.
Vinyl silicone oil is a modified organosilicon fluid with vinyl active groups introduced into the side or terminal positions of the polysiloxane molecular chain, and it is the core basic raw material of the entire addition-cured silicone rubber industry. Different from the inert molecular structure of ordinary dimethyl silicone oil, the vinyl groups on the molecular chain of vinyl silicone oil can undergo an efficient hydrosilylation reaction with the silicon-hydrogen bonds of hydrogen-containing silicone oil under the action of platinum-based catalysts, completing cross-linking and curing without releasing small molecular by-products. The final product forms a three-dimensional network silicone rubber system that combines high elasticity, high insulation and wide temperature range stability. As the "genetic skeleton" of addition-cured silicone rubber, the precision of the molecular structure, the distribution uniformity of active groups and the impurity control level of vinyl silicone oil directly determine all core performance parameters of the final silicone rubber product, including tensile strength, aging resistance and electrical insulation grade. For a long time in the past, the domestically mass-produced vinyl silicone oil in China was mostly concentrated in general-purpose categories with low vinyl content, which could only meet basic scenario requirements such as ordinary construction sealants and low-end daily product mold rubbers. Special products with a vinyl molar fraction higher than 10% have long faced common industry problems such as uneven molecular chain distribution, agglomeration of active groups and inadequate control of trace impurities. Downstream high-end applications could only rely on expensive imported products, posing long-term major hidden dangers to supply chain security.
The industrialization breakthrough completed by domestic technical teams this time has corely overcome three long-term "bottleneck" technical difficulties that restrict the development of the industry. First, the full-process industrialization of the molecular structure precise regulation technology has been realized. The team abandoned the old process of traditional low-activity alkali-catalyzed equilibrium polymerization, and innovatively adopted a brand-new synthesis route of "anionic living polymerization + stepwise end-capping". By introducing a dynamic temperature control unit with gradient heating into the reaction system, the complete random and uniform distribution of vinyl groups on the polysiloxane main chain is achieved, completely avoiding the common local agglomeration phenomenon of vinyl groups in traditional processes. The final high vinyl silicone oil product can stably cover an ultra-wide range of vinyl molar fraction from 10% to 35%, and the error of vinyl content between different batches is controlled within ±0.2%, far better than the industry benchmark level of ±0.8% for similar overseas products. Second, an extreme impurity control system has been fully established. Aiming at the industry pain point of platinum catalyst "poisoning", the team built a multi-stage impurity removal system covering the whole links of raw material pretreatment, reaction process and post-treatment purification. Through the deep adsorption of chelating resin coupled with molecular distillation purification technology, the total content of trace sulfur, phosphorus, amines and other catalyst toxic impurities in the product is controlled below 0.1ppm, and the total residual amount of metal ions is less than 0.2ppm, completely solving the persistent industry problems such as "incomplete curing" and "sticky surface" that are common in the curing process of traditional vinyl silicone oil. Third, the large-scale application of the low volatile content process has been realized. The team innovatively adopted the coupling technology of thin film devolatilization and vacuum deep cooling, controlling the volatile content of the product below 0.08% under the condition of 150°C for 3 hours, far lower than the upper limit of 0.5% specified by international standards, fully meeting the scenarios with extreme requirements for low precipitation characteristics of materials such as aerospace and semiconductor manufacturing.
At present, this domestically produced high vinyl content special silicone oil has completed long-term large-scale application verification in multiple domestic core high-end fields. In the aerospace field, the new generation of large-size flexible silicone rubber heat insulation gaskets prepared with this product has passed 1000 thermal shock tests in the ultra-wide temperature range from -110°C to 320°C, with a tensile strength of 12.5MPa and an elongation at break of more than 650%. After 15000 hours of continuous simulated operation in the environment of strong space ultraviolet radiation and atomic oxygen erosion, the performance retention rate still exceeds 92%, and it has been successfully applied to the cabin heat insulation and sealing system of the new generation manned spacecraft, completely replacing similar products that have long relied on imports. In the new energy photovoltaic field, the new-generation photovoltaic module encapsulant modified with this high vinyl silicone oil has a 45% improvement in the uniformity of crosslinking density. After 25 years of full life cycle outdoor operation of the module, the yellowing index of the encapsulant is still lower than 1.5, and the power generation efficiency attenuation rate of the photovoltaic module is 32% lower than that of the traditional encapsulation system, perfectly adapting to the extreme requirements of current new-generation high-efficiency photovoltaic modules such as N-type TOPCon and heterojunction for encapsulation materials. In the advanced semiconductor field, the silicone rubber for chip underfill prepared with this product does not release any small molecules during the curing process, and the linear expansion coefficient is as low as 120ppm/°C. Under the repeated thermal cycle working condition of the chip from -65°C to 175°C, no delamination or cracking occurs, and the long-term reliability of chip packaging is improved by more than 50%. It has been batch applied to advanced packaging production lines with 7nm and below process nodes. In the new energy vehicle field, the silicone rubber seals for the liquid cooling pipelines of power batteries prepared from high vinyl silicone oil have zero attenuation of sealing performance under the long-term continuous operation condition from -40°C to 150°C, and have passed 12000 hours of accelerated aging tests, fully meeting the full life cycle sealing requirements of the power battery system for 3000 charge-discharge cycles.
The latest market data released by industry research institutions shows that in the first half of 2026, the market demand for domestic high-end vinyl silicone oil increased by 182% year-on-year compared with the same period in 2025. The market pattern where 100% of special products with high vinyl content relied on imports before has rapidly transformed, with domestically produced materials occupying 42% of the market share following this domestic technological breakthrough. The procurement cost for downstream core users has directly decreased by 58%, and the supply chain delivery cycle has been shortened from the original 4 months to less than 10 days. With the subsequent successive commissioning of multiple 10,000-ton production lines, it is expected that the market penetration rate of domestically produced high-end vinyl silicone oil will exceed 85% in 2027. It will not only fully meet the demand of the domestic downstream high-end silicone rubber industry, but also greatly enhance the core competitiveness of China's organosilicon industry in the global high-end market. Experts from industry associations estimate that the full localization of this material will directly drive the entire industrial chain with a scale of nearly 100 billion yuan, including downstream aerospace silicone rubber, photovoltaic encapsulants and electronic potting materials, to achieve independent and controllable development, injecting strong material impetus into the development of China's strategic emerging industries such as new energy and high-end equipment manufacturing.
