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In the second quarter of 2026, a significant industrialization progress emerged in China's organosilicon intermediate sector: a set of continuous production units for high-grade high-hydrogen silicone oil with a designed annual capacity of 35,000 tons officially achieved full-load stable operation. The hydrogen content of the product stably covers the ultra-high range of 1.2%-1.6%, the small molecule volatile content is controlled below 25ppm, and the performance deviation between batches is less than 0.8%. This landmark achievement completely puts an end to the long-term dependence on imports for high-end categories of high-hydrogen silicone oil in China, marking that China's high-hydrogen silicone oil industry has completed independent coverage of the entire series of high-value-added special grades from low-viscosity general-purpose products. It provides fully supply-chain-independent key raw material support for core downstream industries such as photovoltaic new energy, high-end composite materials and medical-grade organosilicon.
High-hydrogen silicone oil is the core intermediate that connects the upstream and downstream of the entire organosilicon industrial system. The active silicon-hydrogen bonds carried on the side groups of its molecular chain are the core reaction sites for the subsequent synthesis of thousands of downstream derivative products such as vinyl silicone oil, polyether modified silicone oil, epoxy modified silicone oil and organosilicon surfactants. Different from ordinary low-hydrogen silicone oil that can only meet basic cross-linking scenarios, high-hydrogen silicone oil with a hydrogen content higher than 1.2% is the core raw material for preparing high cross-linking density silicone rubber, photovoltaic cell encapsulant, high weather resistance waterproofing agent and other high-end products. The three core indicators of the product, namely purity, uniformity of hydrogen content and small molecule residual content, directly determine the service life and safety performance of downstream end products. For a long time in the past, China's industry generally adopted the traditional batch reaction process to produce high-hydrogen silicone oil, which not only had low production efficiency and poor batch stability, but also long faced the gelation problem caused by local excessive cross-linking of silicon-hydrogen bonds during the reaction process. The produced products generally had problems such as uneven distribution of hydrogen content and residual small molecule cyclic siloxanes (D3-D10) exceeding 200ppm, and could not meet the strict requirements of high-end downstream scenarios. Previously, nearly 85% of the market share of ultra-high-purity high-hydrogen silicone oil used in domestic photovoltaic, high-end medical silicone rubber and other fields has long been occupied by overseas manufacturers. Not only has the procurement price remained high for a long time, but the delivery cycle for special customized grades even exceeds 8 months. Some special specification products involving cutting-edge new material fields have long faced the risk of export control, which has seriously restricted the technological iteration speed of downstream industries.
The new continuous production process that has achieved full production this time has corely broken through three technical bottlenecks that have plagued the industry for decades. First, a novel coupling reaction system of cyclic siloxane directional ring opening-active hydrogen precise embedding was pioneered. The technical team abandoned the idea of the traditional batch process, which directly puts hydrogen-containing monomers for random polymerization. By introducing dynamically loaded acidic catalysts and precise temperature control in the microchannel reaction unit, the hydrogen-containing monomers and other siloxane monomers complete directional ring-opening copolymerization in the continuous flow process. This fundamentally avoids the deactivation and local agglomeration of silicon-hydrogen bonds from the source of the reaction, increasing the retention rate of silicon-hydrogen bonds during the reaction from 72% of the traditional process to 98.7%, and thoroughly solving the gelation problem that easily occurs in the production of high-hydrogen silicone oil. Second, China's first five-stage gradient purification system for high-hydrogen systems has been built. Aiming at the difficulty of separating small molecule cyclic siloxanes in high-hydrogen silicone oil, the team innovatively adopted a combined purification process of "thin-film evaporation + two-stage short-path molecular distillation + supercritical extraction + deep adsorption". On the premise of not damaging the activity of silicon-hydrogen bonds at all, the small molecule volatiles in the product are completely removed. The volatile content of the final product after constant temperature baking at 200°C for 4 hours is only 0.03%, far lower than the average level of 0.6% of traditional process products, fully meeting the most stringent requirements for low-VOC organosilicon materials in EU ROHS and REACH regulations. Third, a full-process real-time closed-loop quality control system has been built. Online Raman spectroscopy and online viscosity detection modules are deployed in the entire process of polymerization, purification and filling of the complete production unit. The system samples and analyzes the hydrogen content, viscosity and active group concentration of the reaction system in real time every 12 seconds. Once the parameters deviate, the system automatically makes dynamic adjustments, completely eliminating the product performance difference between different reactors in the traditional batch process, and realizing zero performance deviation of products from different batches.
At present, this independently developed ultra-high-purity high-hydrogen silicone oil has completed long-term industrial application verification for more than 18 months in multiple core high-end downstream fields. In the field of photovoltaic new energy, the photovoltaic module encapsulant prepared with this product has a 42% improvement in the uniformity of cross-linking density. After UV aging and high-low temperature cycle tests, the yellowing index of the encapsulant is only 0.7, far lower than the 3.0 required by the industry standard. The outdoor long-term power generation life of photovoltaic modules has been extended from 25 years to 35 years. Related products have been fully and batch applied in the production lines of new-generation N-type modules of mainstream domestic photovoltaic module enterprises. In the field of high-end building waterproofing, the organosilicon waterproofing agent prepared with high-hydrogen silicone oil as the core raw material undergoes an in-depth reaction between silicon-hydrogen bonds and hydroxyl groups on the surface of building substrates, forming a permanent nano-scale waterproof and breathable layer on the surface of concrete and stone. The effective service life of the waterproofing agent has been extended from 5-8 years of traditional products to more than 30 years, and it has been widely used in waterproof protection projects for national key projects such as high-speed railway tunnels, cross-sea bridges and large water conservancy hubs. In the field of medical organosilicon, this high-hydrogen silicone oil with low small molecule residue has passed the full set of biocompatibility tests of ISO10993. As a cross-linking agent, it prepares medical-grade liquid silicone rubber that will not cause small molecule precipitation after long-term implantation in the human body. Related products have been applied in Class III medical device fields such as artificial soft tissue filling and medical catheter coatings. In the field of special coatings, the high weather resistance organosilicon coating prepared with this product has doubled the UV aging resistance of the coating. After 15 years of outdoor exposure, it still maintains a gloss retention rate of more than 90%, and has been widely used in the protection of facilities exposed to extreme environments for a long time, such as wind turbine blades and marine engineering equipment.
According to the latest industry operation data, the market demand for domestic high-hydrogen silicone oil in the first half of 2026 increased by 247% year-on-year compared with the same period in 2025. With the launch of this domestic continuous production line, the market pattern where overseas products once occupied an absolute dominant position has been completely broken. The market procurement price of high-end high-hydrogen silicone oil has dropped by 62% year-on-year, and the delivery cycle for core downstream users has been shortened from the original 8 months to less than 7 days. With the subsequent start of construction of the second production line of the same scale, it is expected that by 2028, the global market share of domestically produced high-end high-hydrogen silicone oil will exceed 70%. It will not only fully meet the upgrading needs of domestic downstream industries, but also greatly enhance the core voice of China's organosilicon key intermediates in the global industrial chain, and build a solid raw material foundation for the innovative development of the entire organosilicon downstream new material industry.
