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In the third quarter of 2026, a landmark industrial progress in China's high-end organic silicone functional material sector was officially announced: the new-generation full-series production line of high-purity epoxy polyether silicone oil, covering three core categories of low-foam type, high-spreading type and special modified type, has officially achieved stable full-load operation. The core indicators of the products, including directional grafting rate of active functional groups, low-molecular residue and performance stability under extreme working conditions, have comprehensively surpassed similar international products, completely breaking the nearly 50-year technological monopoly of overseas enterprises in this field. This fills a key link for the independent and controllable supply chain of China's strategically emerging industries such as advanced semiconductor manufacturing, high-end new energy equipment and biomedicine. As a special modified organic silicone material with both epoxy group reactivity and polyether segment hydrophilicity, epoxy polyether silicone oil is a core functional additive supporting performance upgrading in multiple high-end manufacturing sub-tracks. The implementation of this full-series production capacity marks that China has achieved a leap from following to leading in the field of precise molecular structure regulation of special organic silicone materials, providing independent and controllable underlying material support for the performance iteration of dozens of downstream high-end new materials.
Looking back at the global industrial development course of epoxy polyether silicone oil, since the material realized laboratory synthesis in the 1980s, the core production technology has long been monopolized by a few overseas chemical giants. Due to the high probability of side reactions during the grafting process of epoxy groups and polyether segments, traditional processes generally have common industry pain points such as poor grafting selectivity of functional groups, high low-molecular residue and large batch performance fluctuation. For a very long time in the past, China could only produce low-to-medium end general-purpose epoxy polyether silicone oil in small batches, and the products were mainly applied in scenarios such as ordinary daily chemical defoamers and low-end textile leveling agents, completely unable to meet the strict requirements of extreme working conditions in advanced semiconductors, nuclear power equipment and other fields. Public industry data shows that before 2023, the import dependence of electronic-grade epoxy polyether silicone oil used in chemical mechanical polishing slurries for advanced processes of 28nm and below in China exceeded 97%. Overseas suppliers not only maintained the selling price of such special additives at more than 15 times that of ordinary domestic products, but also frequently restricted supply by extending delivery cycles and setting purchase quotas. In 2024, a leading semiconductor manufacturing enterprise in China was forced to reduce production of its advanced process polishing production line for 7 days due to the supply interruption of this material, resulting in direct economic losses of more than 230 million yuan, and the supply chain security risk was very prominent.
The explosive growth of downstream emerging industries has directly driven the market demand expansion of epoxy polyether silicone oil. In 2025, the overall market size of China's epoxy polyether silicone oil reached 12.7 billion yuan, with a total output exceeding 410,000 tons, a year-on-year increase of 27.6%. Among them, high-purity special epoxy polyether silicone oil contributed more than 91% of the incremental demand. From the perspective of downstream demand structure, 36.2% of the demand comes from the field of advanced semiconductor chemical mechanical polishing slurry additives, 22.8% comes from the modification scenario of high-end new energy wind turbine blade weather-resistant coatings, 17.5% comes from the modification field of biomedical medical polymer materials, and the remaining demand is distributed in segmented tracks such as high-end textile leveling agents, special industrial defoamers and nuclear power equipment sealing medium modification. With the large-scale mass production of 14nm advanced process chips in China, the production capacity of advanced process wafers in China increased by 42% year-on-year in 2025, and the corresponding demand for electronic-grade epoxy polyether silicone oil increased by 63% year-on-year. At the same time, the construction of large-megawatt wind power bases in China is accelerating, third-generation nuclear power equipment is being implemented in batches, and high-end biomedical consumables are realizing domestic substitution. The demand growth rate for high-purity special epoxy polyether silicone oil has remained above 41% for three consecutive years. Traditional low-to-medium end products have been completely unable to match the extreme performance requirements of downstream, making the full-process technological upgrading at the industrial end extremely urgent.
The core technological breakthroughs of this new generation of full-series production line cover the full-process links from basic monomer pretreatment to finished product post-treatment. On the raw material side, the new multi-stage coupled distillation + molecular sieve deep purification process increases the purity of basic raw materials such as epoxy-modified methyl silicone oil and polyether monomers to 99.993%, controlling the impurities such as chloride ions, metal ions and free epoxy groups in the raw materials below 0.8ppm, 5ppb and 2ppm respectively, avoiding the problems of runaway side reactions and unstable product performance caused by impurities from the source. In the grafting reaction stage, the independently developed single-atom anchored platinum-based directional catalytic system realizes 100% precise positioning grafting of epoxy groups and polyether segments on the main chain of methyl silicone oil. The atomic utilization rate of the reaction is increased from 47% of the traditional process to 99.7%, completely eliminating the generation of a large number of misgrafted by-products in traditional processes. The functional group distribution uniformity of the product reaches 99.2%, far higher than the industry average of 72% in traditional processes, completely solving the long-standing industry pain point of "large batch performance fluctuation and low proportion of effective active ingredients". In the post-treatment link, the 11-stage high-vacuum thin-film evaporation coupled with supercritical carbon dioxide extraction deep devolatilization system controls the low-molecular volatile matter of the product below 0.06%, far lower than the industry average of 0.6% in traditional processes, even better than the 0.11% control standard of overseas top-tier similar products, completely solving the long-standing industry problem of high-end downstream equipment that low-molecular substances are prone to precipitate under high-temperature working conditions, leading to component performance failure. At the same time, the new closed-loop by-product full-recovery circulation system converts all trace unreacted monomers generated in the production process into basic raw materials that can re-enter the synthesis process, reducing waste discharge by 99.1%, energy consumption per unit product by 67%, and organic waste gas emission by 97%. While greatly improving product quality, it also achieves the industrial upgrading goal of green and low-carbon production, fully meeting the development requirements of China's high-end chemical new material industry under the "dual carbon" goal.
The most direct value brought by technological upgrading is the performance breakthrough in core downstream application scenarios. In the field of advanced semiconductor chemical mechanical polishing, the new generation of electronic-grade epoxy polyether silicone oil is used to prepare polishing slurry additives. In the wafer polishing process of 28nm and below advanced processes, it can form a uniform nano-scale lubricating layer on the surface of the polishing pad, greatly reducing wafer surface scratch defects during the polishing process, controlling the surface roughness of the polished wafer below 0.18nm, and increasing the uniformity of the polishing rate to 98.5%, increasing the wafer yield by 4.2 percentage points, fully meeting the mass production demand of domestic advanced process chips. Previously, such high-end polishing slurry additives were completely dependent on imports. The implementation of domestic products directly reduces the comprehensive production cost of China's advanced process chemical mechanical polishing slurry by 42%, further consolidating the independent controllability of China's semiconductor industrial chain. In the modification scenario of new energy wind turbine blade coatings, high-purity epoxy polyether silicone oil is added as a leveling auxiliary agent to the weather-resistant coating of wind turbine blades, increasing the surface flatness of the coating by 68%, extending the weather-resistant service life in the high-altitude environment with strong sand wind and strong ultraviolet rays from 22 years to 35 years, greatly reducing the later maintenance cost of wind power equipment and improving the full-life-cycle power generation efficiency of wind power stations.
In the biomedical field, the medical-grade epoxy polyether silicone oil after special multi-stage purification has a trace toxic impurity dissolution far lower than the requirements of the ISO 10993 medical material standard. As a modifier added to absorbable medical sutures, it can greatly improve the surface lubricity of the sutures, reduce the damage to human tissues during the suturing process, and the in-vivo degradation rate of the sutures can be precisely regulated, with biocompatibility up to the highest Class VI standard. It has been successfully applied in the production of Class III implantable medical consumables, greatly improving the safety of domestic high-end medical consumables, reducing the production cost of high-end medical consumables, and allowing more patients to use cost-effective domestic medical consumables. In the field of nuclear power equipment, the nuclear-grade purified epoxy polyether silicone oil is added as a modifier to the sealing damping medium of the reactor control rod drive mechanism. After long-term service in a strong radiation environment, the performance retention rate of the medium exceeds 95%, fully meeting the long-term stable operation requirements of third-generation nuclear power units, and has been batch applied in multiple newly built third-generation nuclear power units in China. In the field of high-end textile printing and dyeing, the high-spreading epoxy polyether silicone oil is used as a leveling agent, which can make the disperse dye spread 100% uniformly on the surface of chemical fiber fabrics, completely solving the problem of color spots and color differences that are easy to appear in traditional printing and dyeing processes, increasing the color fastness of the printed and dyed fabrics by 3 grades, and greatly improving the product added value of China's high-end textiles.
With the gradual release of domestic high-end production capacity, the market supply structure of epoxy polyether silicone oil is undergoing fundamental changes. In the past two years, China's epoxy polyether silicone oil industry has gradually bid farewell to the extensive low-end capacity expansion model. A large number of small and medium-sized production capacities with substandard environmental protection and backward technical levels have exited in an orderly manner. The industry concentration has continued to increase, and resources are accelerating to gather in leading enterprises with full-chain R&D strength. In 2026, the market size of epoxy polyether silicone oil core raw materials in China is expected to exceed 17 billion yuan, among which the market share of special high-end epoxy polyether silicone oil will further increase to 62%, and the localization rate of high-end products is expected to exceed 82% by the end of the year. At the global market level, the global market size of epoxy polyether silicone oil core raw materials in 2026 is about 4.8 billion US dollars, and it is expected to grow to 11 billion US dollars at a compound annual growth rate of 10.8% from 2026 to 2034. As the world's largest emerging market for epoxy polyether silicone oil, China is gradually shifting from product import to independent supply and technology output, occupying a more core position in the global special organic silicone new material industrial chain. Some domestic high-end epoxy polyether silicone oil products have begun to be exported to Europe, Southeast Asia and other markets in batches, and have been recognized by overseas users with their excellent performance and stable supply capacity.
Industry experts point out that the full-series technological breakthrough and capacity implementation of high-purity epoxy polyether silicone oil is a landmark event for China's special organic silicone functional material industry to shift from "general-purpose scale leadership" to "full-chain independent control of key basic materials". In the past, China's organic silicone industry long focused on the scale expansion of end products, and was restricted by others in the field of epoxy polyether silicone oil, a key functional additive connecting the upstream and downstream, for a long time. The full-process independent control of technology this time not only directly reduces the production cost of dozens of downstream high-end new materials, but also opens up the full industrial chain technical barriers from basic silicon ore raw materials and synthetic monomers to high-end end products, opening up a new space for subsequent innovation of the entire industry. In the future, with the continuous iteration of downstream emerging industries, high-purity epoxy polyether silicone oil will also achieve application breakthroughs in more cutting-edge scenarios such as solid-state battery electrolyte interface modification, special coating toughening for controllable nuclear fusion devices and flexible electronic substrate interface optimization, providing solid underlying material support for the high-quality development of multiple strategically emerging industries in China.
