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In the third quarter of 2026, the domestic polyether modified polydimethylsiloxane industry has ushered in a landmark progress: a full-process closed-loop intelligent polyether silicone oil production unit with a designed annual capacity of 47,000 tons successfully completed a 336-hour full-load steady operation assessment, and all series of products passed the batch application verification in three core downstream fields: daily chemical cleaning and care, industrial defoaming, and textile softeners at one time. The polyether silicone oil products produced by this unit can realize continuous stepless adjustment in the viscosity range of 70-200cP at 25℃, fully covering the full-scenario demands of low-viscosity refreshing daily chemical additives, medium-viscosity industrial defoamers, and high-viscosity textile finishing agents. Among them, the low-residue grade for high-end sensitive skin cleaning and care has an unreacted polyether monomer residue of less than 0.08%, and the surface tension is stably controlled in an extremely narrow range of 21.2-21.8mN/m. The spreading rate deviation of products from different batches is less than 2.7%, and all core indicators have reached the top level of similar international products. This achievement marks that China has completely broken the long-term technological monopoly of overseas enterprises on high-precision customized polyether silicone oil, providing fully independent and controllable core material support for the upgrading of daily chemical consumption and the localization of high-end manufacturing additives.
Polyether modified polydimethylsiloxane is a type of amphiphilic special organosilicon material formed by grafting polyether side chains on the siloxane main chain. Its molecular structure has both the low surface tension and high lubricity of siloxane segments, and the hydrophilic emulsifying properties of polyether segments, which is called "flow industrial vitamin" in the industry. From the perspective of molecular characteristics, the viscosity performance of polyether silicone oil is like a freely adjustable liquid spring: every 5% increase in the proportion of polyether chains will synchronously increase the product viscosity by 15-20cP, while the proportion of methyl side chains directly determines the flow resistance of the material. Products in different viscosity ranges correspond to completely differentiated application scenarios. Products in the low-viscosity range of 70-120cP can spread rapidly on the skin surface to form a film, without the heavy and sticky feeling of ordinary silicone oil, and are the core additives of high-end refreshing skin care products and sensitive skin cleaning products. Products in the medium-viscosity range of 120-160cP achieve a perfect balance between bubble puncture ability and liquid rebound characteristics, and are the core effective components of industrial defoamers in modern fields such as biological fermentation, coating production, and sewage treatment. Products in the high-viscosity range of 160-200cP can form a long-lasting flexible lubricating layer on the fiber surface, endowing chemical fiber fabrics with soft touch comparable to natural cashmere, and are indispensable functional components in the high-end textile post-finishing process. In addition, polyether silicone oil has unique temperature response characteristics: when a 200cP sample at 25℃ is heated to 50℃, its viscosity can drop sharply to 80cP. When the proportion of polyether segments exceeds 30%, a special low-temperature thickening phenomenon will occur, which makes it a potential candidate component in the fields of intelligent temperature control fluids and phase change energy storage materials.
Over the past two decades, the domestic polyether silicone oil industry has long stayed in the stage of extensive production at the middle and low end, and has been unable to break through three common industry technical bottlenecks. The first is the problem of precise viscosity regulation: under the traditional production mode of batch reactors, the temperature of the polyether grafting reaction and the uniformity of material distribution cannot be controlled at the micron level. The deviation between the actual viscosity of the final product and the designed value generally exceeds ±20%, and the viscosity difference between different sampling points of the same batch of products can even reach more than 30cP, which easily causes performance fluctuations in downstream applications. The second is the problem of low-residue purification: the unreacted polyether monomers and small-molecule siloxane rings remaining during the synthesis of polyether silicone oil will directly lead to problems such as sticky residue in daily chemical products and floating oil failure in industrial defoamers. The unreacted monomer residue of products produced by traditional domestic processes is generally higher than 1.2%, which completely cannot meet the strict safety standards of high-end European and American cleaning brands. The third is the problem of customizing the EO/PO ratio: the ratio of ethylene oxide (EO) and propylene oxide (PO) in the polyether chain segment directly determines the hydrophilic-lipophilic balance value of the product. Under the traditional production mode, the uniform grafting of polyether chains with different EO/PO ratios cannot be realized, and the production cycle of customized grades is as long as more than 45 days, which completely cannot keep up with the rapid iteration demand of downstream segmented fields. For a long time, the high-end customized polyether silicone oil market has been monopolized by a few overseas enterprises. The purchase price of some ultra-pure grades for infant cleaning and care is more than 7 times that of ordinary domestic products, and the delivery cycle can be as long as 90 days, which has seriously restricted the upgrading process of domestic downstream fields such as daily chemicals, textiles and high-end manufacturing.
The new intelligent production system that has achieved full production this time has corely overcome three technical barriers that have plagued the global polyether silicone oil industry for decades. First, the gradient polyether chain grafting reaction technology was pioneered. The R&D team abandoned the traditional production mode of "one-pot boiling" in a single reactor, and independently built a 16-stage series stepped temperature control reaction unit. The temperature difference between different reaction chambers is controlled within 3℃, so that polyether segments with different molecular weights are evenly distributed on the siloxane main chain. From the source of the reaction, the product viscosity deviation is controlled within ±3%, which completely solves the problem of uneven performance caused by local polyether enrichment in traditional processes. Second, the world's first 10-stage coupled low-temperature purification system for polyether silicone oil systems has been built. Aiming at the industry pain point that polyether segments are prone to oxidative chain breakage at high temperatures, the team innovatively adopted a combined process of "multi-stage low-temperature molecular distillation + inert gas countercurrent stripping + nano-membrane adsorption deep removal". The operating temperature throughout the process is strictly controlled below 75℃, which completely avoids the thermal degradation side reaction of polyether segments. The unreacted polyether monomer residue in the final product is less than 0.08%, and the small-molecule siloxane ring residue is less than 1ppm, reaching the international ultra-pure daily chemical raw material safety standard. Third, a full-process real-time dynamic regulation platform has been built. The entire unit, covering polyether pretreatment, siloxane ring-opening polymerization, grafting reaction, purification and separation, is equipped with online rotational viscometers and online nuclear magnetic resonance detection modules. The system samples and analyzes the viscosity, polyether grafting rate and EO/PO ratio of the reaction system in real time every 0.8 seconds. Once there is a tiny deviation in the parameters, the system automatically adjusts the material feed ratio of different reaction units, completely eliminating the batch performance difference of traditional batch processes, and realizing zero performance drift of products from different batches across 36 months.
At present, this independently developed high-precision polyether silicone oil has completed long-term industrial application verification for more than 42 months in multiple core downstream fields. In the field of high-end daily chemical cleaning and care, the sensitive skin facial cleanser prepared with low-viscosity grades has a 68% increase in spreading rate after application, and no residual sticky feeling after rinsing. Related raw materials have been batch entered into the high-end product lines of domestic head beauty groups. In the field of industrial biological fermentation, the defoamer prepared with medium-viscosity grades has a defoaming response time of less than 2 seconds in the penicillin fermentation system, and the foam inhibition time is 3.2 times longer than that of traditional defoamers, which completely solves the industry pain point that traditional defoamers affect the activity of fermentation strains. In the field of high-end textile post-finishing, the fabric softener prepared with high-viscosity grades still has a softness retention rate of more than 90% after 50 times of washing, and related products have been applied to the finishing process of high-end infant close-fitting clothing. In the field of intelligent temperature control fluids, the special polyether silicone oil prepared by precisely adjusting the EO/PO ratio can realize linear and continuous viscosity change in the range of 20-60℃, and related samples have entered the test link of new energy vehicle battery temperature control systems.
According to the latest industry operation monitoring data, the domestic market demand for high-end polyether silicone oil in 2026 increased by 247% year-on-year compared with the same period in 2025. With the official launch of this domestic intelligent production line, the market pattern where overseas products have long monopolized the market has been completely broken. The market purchase price of high-precision polyether silicone oil has dropped by 72% year-on-year, and the customized product delivery cycle for core downstream users has been greatly shortened from the original 45 days to less than 72 hours. With the subsequent start of construction of the second production line of the same scale, it is expected that by 2030, the global market share of domestically produced high-precision polyether silicone oil will exceed 78%. It will not only fully meet the needs of domestic daily chemical consumption upgrading and high-end manufacturing additive localization, but also greatly enhance the core voice of China's high-end polyether silicone oil special intermediates in the global new material industrial chain.
