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In the third quarter of 2026, another landmark industrial progress in China's high-end special organic silicone functional material sector was officially announced: the new-generation full-series production line of high-purity phenyl-modified silicone oil, covering four core categories of high-transparency type, high-refractive-index type, radiation-resistant type and low-stress type, has officially achieved stable full-load operation. The core indicators of the products, including the precise regulation accuracy of phenyl content, optical transmittance and performance stability under extreme temperature environments, have comprehensively surpassed similar top-tier international products, completely breaking the nearly 60-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 Mini/Micro LED displays, third-generation semiconductor packaging and deep space exploration equipment. As a special modified organic silicone material with phenyl functional groups directionally introduced into the molecular main chain of methyl silicone oil, phenyl-modified silicone oil is a core functional substrate supporting performance upgrading in multiple high-end optoelectronic manufacturing sub-tracks. The implementation of this full-series production capacity marks that China has achieved another 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 optoelectronic new materials.
Looking back at the global industrial development course of phenyl-modified silicone oil, since the material realized laboratory synthesis in the 1960s, the core production technology has long been monopolized by a few overseas chemical giants. Due to the high probability of uneven distribution and local polymerization side reactions during the grafting process of phenyl functional groups, traditional processes generally have common industry pain points such as poor regulation accuracy of phenyl content, low optical transmittance of products and fast performance degradation under extreme working conditions. For a very long time in the past, China could only produce low-to-medium end general-purpose phenyl-modified silicone oil in small batches, and the products were mainly applied in scenarios such as ordinary high-temperature lubricating oils and low-end daily chemical additives, completely unable to meet the strict requirements of extreme working conditions in advanced optoelectronic displays and deep space exploration equipment. Public industry data shows that before 2023, the import dependence of high-refractive-index phenyl-modified silicone oil used in Micro LED chip packaging in China exceeded 98%. Overseas suppliers not only maintained the selling price of such special substrates at more than 18 times that of ordinary domestic products, but also frequently restricted supply by extending delivery cycles and setting purchase quotas. In 2024, a leading optoelectronic display manufacturing enterprise in China was forced to reduce production of its new-generation Micro LED panel production line for 9 days due to the supply interruption of this material, resulting in direct economic losses of more than 270 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 phenyl-modified silicone oil. In 2025, the overall market size of China's phenyl-modified silicone oil reached 14.2 billion yuan, with a total output exceeding 370,000 tons, a year-on-year increase of 31.2%. Among them, high-purity special phenyl-modified silicone oil contributed more than 93% of the incremental demand. From the perspective of downstream demand structure, 38.7% of the demand comes from the field of advanced optoelectronic display chip packaging, 24.3% comes from the packaging scenario of third-generation semiconductor power devices, 16.8% comes from the field of special lubrication and damping media for deep space exploration equipment, and the remaining demand is distributed in segmented tracks such as high-end optical lens adhesives, nuclear industry radiation-resistant media and high-end aerospace hydraulic oil. With the large-scale mass production of 8-inch Micro LED wafers in China, the production capacity of advanced display panels in China increased by 47% year-on-year in 2025, and the corresponding demand for high-refractive-index phenyl-modified silicone oil increased by 68% year-on-year. At the same time, the capacity expansion of third-generation semiconductor silicon carbide devices in China is accelerating, new-generation manned deep space exploration equipment is being implemented in batches, and high-end large scientific devices are realizing domestic substitution. The demand growth rate for high-purity special phenyl-modified silicone oil has remained above 44% 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 low-temperature distillation + metal-organic framework deep purification process increases the purity of basic raw materials such as phenylchlorosilane and octamethylcyclotetrasiloxane to 99.995%, controlling the impurities such as chloride ions, metal ions and free phenyl groups in the raw materials below 0.6ppm, 3ppb and 1.2ppm respectively, avoiding the problems of runaway side reactions and unstable optical performance of products caused by impurities from the source. In the polymerization reaction stage, the independently developed rare-earth-based directional ring-opening polymerization catalytic system realizes 100% uniform distribution of phenyl functional groups on the polysiloxane main chain. The atomic utilization rate of the reaction is increased from 42% of the traditional process to 99.8%, completely eliminating the generation of a large number of local polymerization by-products in traditional processes. The regulation accuracy of phenyl content of the product reaches ±0.2%, far higher than the industry average of ±3.5% in traditional processes, completely solving the long-standing industry pain point of "large batch optical performance fluctuation and low proportion of effective active ingredients". In the post-treatment link, the 13-stage high-vacuum molecular distillation coupled with supercritical propane extraction deep devolatilization system controls the low-molecular volatile matter of the product below 0.05%, far lower than the industry average of 0.7% in traditional processes, even better than the 0.13% control standard of overseas top-tier similar products, completely solving the long-standing industry problem of high-end downstream optoelectronic equipment that low-molecular substances are prone to precipitate under high-temperature working conditions, leading to optical 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 99.3%, energy consumption per unit product by 71%, and organic waste gas emission by 98%. 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 Micro LED display packaging, the new generation of high-refractive-index phenyl-modified silicone oil is used to prepare chip packaging adhesives. Under the reference of 1.55 refractive index, the optical transmittance in the full visible light band of 400-800nm reaches 99.3%. After 10000 extreme temperature cycles from -65℃ to 280℃, the optical transmittance attenuation rate is less than 0.1%, which can greatly improve the light extraction efficiency of Micro LED chips, increase the overall luminous efficiency of the panel by 27%, and extend the service life of the panel from 60000 hours to 120000 hours, fully meeting the mass production demand of domestic advanced Micro LED display panels. Previously, such high-end packaging substrates were completely dependent on imports. The implementation of domestic products directly reduces the comprehensive production cost of China's advanced Micro LED packaging adhesives by 47%, further consolidating the independent controllability of China's optoelectronic display industrial chain. In the packaging scenario of third-generation semiconductor silicon carbide power devices, high-purity low-stress phenyl-modified silicone oil is used as packaging filling medium, which can quickly export heat when the device operates at high frequency and high power, and greatly reduce the thermal stress impact caused by temperature changes, increasing the long-term service reliability of silicon carbide devices by 35%, greatly extending the service life of on-board power modules for new energy vehicles and reducing the later maintenance cost of new energy vehicles.
In the field of deep space exploration, the radiation-resistant grade phenyl-modified silicone oil after special multi-stage purification has a kinematic viscosity change rate of less than 3% after 100krad γ-ray irradiation in space environment, and its performance retention rate is far higher than the requirements of the international aerospace-grade material standard. As a special lubrication and damping medium applied to the joint motion mechanism of the new-generation manned lunar rover, it can work stably for a long time in the extreme temperature environment from -180℃ to 160℃ on the lunar surface, ensuring the long-term reliable operation of deep space exploration equipment. It has been batch applied in multiple deep space exploration missions in China at present. In the field of nuclear industry, the nuclear-grade purified phenyl-modified silicone oil is used as radiation-resistant cooling medium. After long-term service in the strong radiation environment of the nuclear reactor, the insulation performance retention rate of the medium exceeds 96%, fully meeting the long-term stable operation requirements of fourth-generation nuclear power units, and has been batch applied in multiple newly built fourth-generation nuclear power units in China. In the field of high-end optical lens bonding, high-transparency phenyl-modified silicone oil is used as optical bonding material, which can realize perfect refractive index matching between optical glasses with different refractive indices, reducing the optical loss of the bonded optical components by 62%, greatly improving the imaging quality of high-end optical lenses, and has been widely used in the production of domestic high-end security monitoring lenses and on-board LiDAR optical components.
With the gradual release of domestic high-end production capacity, the market supply structure of phenyl-modified silicone oil is undergoing fundamental changes. In the past two years, China's phenyl-modified 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 phenyl-modified silicone oil core raw materials in China is expected to exceed 19 billion yuan, among which the market share of special high-end phenyl-modified silicone oil will further increase to 65%, and the localization rate of high-end products is expected to exceed 85% by the end of the year. At the global market level, the global market size of phenyl-modified silicone oil core raw materials in 2026 is about 5.6 billion US dollars, and it is expected to grow to 14.8 billion US dollars at a compound annual growth rate of 11.2% from 2026 to 2035. As the world's largest emerging market for phenyl-modified 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 phenyl-modified silicone oil products have begun to be exported to Europe, North America 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 phenyl-modified silicone oil is another 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 phenyl-modified silicone oil, a key functional substrate 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 optoelectronic new materials, but also opens up the full industrial chain technical barriers from basic silicon ore raw materials and synthetic monomers to high-end optoelectronic 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 phenyl-modified silicone oil will also achieve application breakthroughs in more cutting-edge scenarios such as quantum chip packaging media, special coating toughening for controllable nuclear fusion device optical windows and special protective media for space solar power stations, providing solid underlying material support for the high-quality development of multiple strategically emerging industries in China.
