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In the fourth quarter of 2026, the domestic special organic silicone functional additive sector has ushered in a landmark industrial achievement: the new-generation 10,000-ton full-process intelligent production line of hyperbranched low-foam polyether-modified silicone oil has officially passed the 72-hour full-load continuous operation assessment. The core performance indicators of the product, including the dynamic surface tension regulation accuracy, low-foam stability under extreme working conditions and biodegradation rate, have comprehensively reached the international leading level, completely breaking the decades-long technological monopoly of overseas enterprises in the field of high-end polyether-modified silicone oil. As a class of non-ionic special organic silicone materials with polyether segments directionally grafted on the polysiloxane molecular main chain, polyether-modified silicone oil, with its unique amphiphilic molecular structure, simultaneously combines the low surface tension and high and low temperature resistance of polysiloxane with the water solubility and emulsification stability of polyether segments. It is a key functional additive supporting dozens of core industries in the modern green industrial system, including coatings, textiles, agriculture, water treatment and new energy, to achieve energy efficiency upgrading and low-carbon transformation. The stable implementation of this 10,000-ton production line marks that China has completed the full-chain leap from laboratory bench-scale test to large-scale industrial mass production in the field of precise regulation of polyether-modified silicone oil molecular topological structure, filling the independent and controllable short board of key additive links for the green and high-efficiency upgrading of the entire downstream industry.
Looking back at the global industrial development context of polyether-modified silicone oil, since this category first realized industrial synthesis in the 1960s, a few overseas leading chemical enterprises have long held the core technological discourse power. Traditional linear-structure polyether-modified silicone oil generally has three common industry pain points: under strong shear working conditions such as high-speed coating and high-pressure spraying, a large number of stable foams that are difficult to eliminate are easily generated, directly leading to a series of quality problems such as coating pinholes, color spots on fabric surfaces and excessive drift rate of pesticide spraying; under extreme acid and alkali environments, the molecular chain segments are prone to bond breaking and degradation, which cannot adapt to the use requirements of some difficult industrial scenarios; the biodegradation rate of products synthesized by traditional processes has long been lower than 42%, and a large amount of use will form persistent organic residues in the natural environment, which does not meet the increasingly strict environmental protection emission requirements of various industries around the world. Before 2023, the import dependence of domestic high-end low-foam polyether-modified silicone oil remained above 92% for a long time. Overseas suppliers maintained the selling price of such special additives at more than 13 times that of ordinary domestic general-purpose products, and also set purchase quota restrictions for a long time. In 2024, a leading domestic water-based coating industrial cluster once suffered from the supply interruption of such additives, resulting in the temporary shutdown of nearly 30 high-end automotive paint production lines for 9 days, with direct economic losses of more than 270 million yuan, and the hidden danger of supply chain security was very prominent.
The green transformation wave of the entire downstream industry has directly driven the explosive expansion of the market demand for polyether-modified silicone oil. In 2025, the overall market size of China's polyether-modified silicone oil reached 21.7 billion yuan, with a total output exceeding 790,000 tons, a year-on-year increase of 39.2%. Among them, high-end special polyether-modified silicone oil contributed more than 91% of the annual incremental demand. From the perspective of downstream demand structure, 32.7% of the demand comes from the leveling and defoaming additive scenarios of water-based industrial coatings, 24.1% comes from the field of pesticide spray additives in modern green agriculture, 18.5% comes from the high-end textile dyeing and finishing hydrophilic softening finishing scenarios, and the remaining demand is distributed in dozens of segmented tracks such as high-efficiency defoamers for industrial circulating water treatment, new energy lithium battery pole piece coating additives, low-irritation conditioning agents for daily chemical washing products, and photovoltaic panel cleaning additives. With the accelerated process of replacing traditional solvent-based coatings with water-based coatings in China, the total output of domestic water-based industrial coatings increased by 47% year-on-year in 2025, and the corresponding demand for low-foam polyether-modified silicone oil increased by 68% year-on-year. At the same time, the low-drift pesticide spraying technology in domestic green ecological agriculture has been fully promoted, the production capacity of high-end functional textiles has expanded rapidly, and the high-speed coating technology of new energy lithium battery pole pieces has been iteratively upgraded. The demand growth rate for high-performance polyether-modified silicone oil has remained above 44% for three consecutive years. Traditional linear-structure low-to-medium end products have been completely unable to meet the use requirements of downstream extreme working conditions, making the technological upgrading of the entire industry extremely urgent.
The core technological breakthroughs of this new-generation 10,000-ton production line cover the full-process links from basic monomer synthesis to finished product post-treatment. In the raw material pretreatment stage, the newly developed multi-stage distillation coupled molecular distillation deep purification process increases the purity of basic raw materials such as hydrogen-containing polysiloxane and alkenyl polyether for synthesis to 99.996%, controlling the residual catalyst ions, free polyether impurities and small-molecule cyclic siloxane content in the raw materials below 1.8ppb, 0.7ppm and 1.1ppm respectively, avoiding the long-standing industry problems such as unstable product performance caused by impurities and the precipitation of small molecular substances during long-term use from the source. In the molecular synthesis reaction stage, the independently developed multi-active center supported precious metal directional catalytic system realizes the fixed-point controllable grafting of polyether segments on the three-dimensional topological main chain of hyperbranched polysiloxane. The atomic utilization rate of the reaction is increased from 41% of the traditional linear process to 99.6%, completely eliminating the generation of a large number of unreacted free polyether and low-molecular polysiloxane by-products in traditional processes. The regulation accuracy of product surface tension reaches ±0.1mN/m, far higher than the industry average of ±0.7mN/m in traditional processes, completely solving the long-standing industry pain point of "large performance fluctuation of products in different batches and unstable downstream use effect". In the post-treatment refining link, the 16-stage high-vacuum thin-film evaporation coupled nanofiltration membrane deep separation system controls the residual amount of small-molecule cyclic siloxane in the product below 2ppm, far lower than the industry average of 47ppm in traditional processes, even better than the 7ppm control standard of overseas top-tier similar products, completely solving the long-standing industry problems in high-end downstream scenarios such as coating surface shrinkage cavities and fabric surface oil spots caused by small molecule precipitation. At the same time, the newly built 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%, comprehensive energy consumption per unit product by 76%, and organic waste gas emission by 98.7%. While greatly improving product quality, it also achieves the industrial upgrading goal of green and low-carbon production, fully meeting the industrial development orientation of high-end green chemical new materials under China's "dual carbon" goal.
The most direct value brought by technological upgrading is the dual breakthrough of performance and energy efficiency in core downstream application scenarios. In the field of water-based industrial coatings, the leveling additive prepared with the new-generation hyperbranched low-foam polyether-modified silicone oil has a system foam height of only 17% of that of traditional linear products under the high-speed coating condition of 120m/min. The number of pinholes on the coated surface after coating is reduced by 94%, the overall flatness of the coating is increased by 42%, and the wear resistance of the coating is increased by 31% at the same time. It can greatly reduce the defective rate of high-end automotive original paint and industrial anti-corrosion paint, and increase the daily production capacity of a single production line by 27%. Previously, such high-end coating additives were completely dependent on imports. The implementation of domestic products directly reduces the comprehensive production cost of domestic high-end water-based industrial coatings by 48%, further consolidating the independent controllability of the entire domestic water-based coating industrial chain. In the scenario of pesticide spray additives in green agriculture, the pesticide spray liquid added with this type of polyether-modified silicone oil can reduce the surface tension to below 21mN/m, the spreading area of the liquid on the plant leaf surface is increased by 3.7 times, the effective utilization rate of pesticides is increased from the traditional 39% to 76%, the pesticide usage can be reduced by 41%, and the high-altitude drift rate of the liquid is reduced by 83%, greatly reducing the pollution of pesticides to the surrounding ecological environment. At present, such additives have been widely used in the unified prevention and control projects of multiple major grain producing areas in China, directly contributing to the cost saving, efficiency improvement and ecological protection of agricultural production.
In the field of high-end textile dyeing and finishing, the specially molecular structure designed hydrophilic polyether-modified silicone oil is used as a fabric softening finishing agent. The treated pure cotton and chemical fiber blended fabrics not only have excellent soft and fluffy hand feel, but also the hydrophilic and moisture-conducting performance of the fabric is increased by 59%. The hand feel retention rate exceeds 93% after repeated washing for 50 times, completely solving the long-standing industry pain points of traditional organic silicone softeners that the treated fabrics are "hydrophobic and non-breathable, prone to oil spots". At present, it has been batch applied in the fabric production of multiple leading domestic functional sports apparel brands. In the scenario of new energy lithium battery pole piece coating, the high-uniformity low-precipitation polyether-modified silicone oil is used as the coating leveling additive, which can control the surface coating thickness error of the positive and negative pole pieces of the lithium battery within ±0.3μm, reduce the pinhole and scratch defects on the pole piece surface by 92%, and greatly improve the charge-discharge cycle life and overall safety of the lithium battery. At present, it has been batch applied in the new-generation high-speed coating production lines of multiple mainstream domestic power battery enterprises. In the field of industrial circulating water treatment, the high acid and alkali resistant polyether-modified silicone oil is used as a high-efficiency defoamer, which can stably function for a long time in the extreme water environment with pH value of 2-13. The defoaming speed is 2.8 times higher than that of traditional polyether defoamers, and the foam inhibition time is extended by 6.3 times, greatly reducing the overflow risk of industrial circulating water systems and improving the operation efficiency of circulating water systems in industries such as chemical industry and electric power. At present, it has been fully promoted in the circulating water systems of multiple large domestic chemical parks.
With the gradual release of domestic high-end production capacity, the market supply structure of polyether-modified silicone oil is undergoing fundamental changes. In the past two years, China's polyether-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 polyether-modified silicone oil core raw materials in China is expected to exceed 28 billion yuan, among which the market share of special high-end polyether-modified silicone oil will further increase to 71%, and the localization rate of high-end products is expected to exceed 90% by the end of the year. At the global market level, the global market size of polyether-modified silicone oil core raw materials in 2026 is about 8.2 billion US dollars, and it is expected to grow to 22.7 billion US dollars at a compound annual growth rate of 11.7% from 2026 to 2035. As the world's largest emerging market for polyether-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 additive industrial chain. Some domestic high-end polyether-modified silicone oil products have begun to be exported to Europe, North America, Southeast Asia and other markets in batches, and have been widely recognized by overseas users with their excellent performance and stable supply capacity.
Industry experts point out that the full-series technological breakthrough and 10,000-ton capacity implementation of hyperbranched low-foam polyether-modified silicone oil is another landmark event for China's special organic silicone functional additive industry to shift from "general-purpose scale leadership" to "full-chain independent control of key basic additives". 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 polyether-modified 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 green industrial products, but also opens up the full industrial chain technical barriers from basic silicon ore raw materials and synthetic monomers to downstream end green applications, 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 special polyether-modified silicone oil will also achieve application breakthroughs in more cutting-edge scenarios such as deep-sea oil production additives, aerospace special fluid media and medical material additives for human implantation, providing solid underlying material support for the high-quality green development of multiple strategically emerging industries in China.
