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Domestic low-ring ethylene-based vinyl silicone oil achieves technological breakthrough across the entire spectrum, supporting the independent control of the high-end manufacturing supply chain
Autonomy for High-End Manufacturing August 2026 marks a landmark milestone in China’s organosilicon materials sector: the full-spectrum low-cyclic vinyl silicone oil, covering viscosity grades from low to 350,000 mPa·s, has achieved large-scale stable mass production. The total residual cyclic siloxane content of the product is controlled below 300ppm, while the concentrations of three regulated cyclic siloxanes, D4, D5 and D6, are all lower than 0.1%. All core performance indicators comprehensively surpass the benchmark levels of similar international products. This breakthrough not only completely breaks the nearly 40-year technological monopoly of overseas enterprises in the field of high-end vinyl silicone oil, but also directly provides fully independent and controllable core basic materials for strategic emerging industries such as new energy, advanced packaging and aerospace, laying a solid foundation for China’s organosilicon industry to meet the world’s most stringent environmental regulations and expand its share in the high-end market.
As one of the most core reactive base polymers in the organosilicon material system, vinyl silicone oil is a kind of polydimethylsiloxane with reactive vinyl functional groups on its main chain or side chain. The vinyl groups in its molecular structure can form a three-dimensional cross-linked network through platinum-catalyzed hydrosilylation reactions or peroxide-initiated free radical reactions, making it the core raw material for high-end products such as addition-cure liquid silicone rubber, silicone gel, fluorosilicone rubber and electronic potting adhesive. Unlike ordinary dimethyl silicone oil that is only used as an auxiliary agent, the molecular structure design, precise control of functional group content, molecular weight distribution regulation and low-volatility removal of vinyl silicone oil directly determine the temperature resistance, mechanical strength, dielectric properties and long-term reliability of downstream end products. It is a key node material that connects the upstream and downstream sectors in the entire organosilicon deep processing industrial chain.
Over the past decades, the global high-end vinyl silicone oil market has long been dominated by a small number of overseas chemical giants, and China’s domestic industry has long faced three core dilemmas. First, there is a supply gap in high-end products. The vinyl silicone oil produced in China in the early stage generally suffered from problems such as high cyclic residue, wide molecular weight distribution and large deviation of vinyl content. High-end products with high viscosity, high vinyl content and low volatility have long relied on imports. The procurement cycle for some special specifications is as long as 3 to 6 months, and supply stability is extremely vulnerable to fluctuations in the international supply chain. Second, it is difficult to cross the threshold of environmental compliance. In June 2026, the EU REACH Regulation (EU) 2024/1328 came into full effect, stipulating that the concentration of D4, D5 and D6 in all substances or mixtures placed on the EU market shall not exceed 0.1%. However, the cyclic residue of vinyl silicone oil produced by traditional processes is generally at the level of thousands of ppm, and a large number of domestic export enterprises once faced the risk of order loss because they could not meet this standard. Third, the application in high-end downstream fields is restricted. In scenarios with extremely high material purity requirements, such as new energy vehicle battery packaging, Chiplet advanced packaging and aero-engine sealing, excessive cyclic residue will lead to a sharp increase in energy consumption in the secondary vulcanization process, and volatile small molecules will precipitate in the long-term high-temperature environment, directly affecting the insulation reliability of electronic devices and the service life of seals. Previously, in order to ensure product quality, domestic downstream manufacturing enterprises had to purchase imported high-end vinyl silicone oil at a price several times higher than that of ordinary products, which significantly increased the manufacturing cost of the entire industrial chain.
This full-spectrum breakthrough of domestic low-cyclic vinyl silicone oil is not a single-link process improvement, but a systematic industrial upgrading covering polymerization reaction control, continuous devolatilization, online quality inspection and full-process automated management and control. Aiming at the common industry problems in traditional processes, such as many side reactions in anionic ring-opening polymerization, difficult deep removal of small molecular cyclics, and easy self-polymerization of vinyl functional groups, domestic R&D teams have carried out more than ten years of continuous technical research, and finally built a complete set of independent intellectual property rights for the entire production technology system.
In the polymerization reaction section, the R&D team developed a new type of controlled living polymerization process. By precisely regulating the reaction temperature, catalyst concentration and functional group feeding ratio, the molecular weight distribution index of the product is compressed from more than 2.2 in the traditional process to less than 1.2, and the control accuracy of the vinyl mole fraction reaches ±0.02%, which completely solves the long-standing industry problem of large performance fluctuations between different batches of products. In the devolatilization refining section, the team independently designed a multi-stage series thin-film evaporation + molecular distillation combined process, which realized the deep removal of cyclic siloxane small molecules in a high-vacuum and low-temperature environment. Without damaging the structure of reactive vinyl groups on the molecular chain, the total volatile content of the product is controlled below 0.1%, far lower than the 0.5% requirement of the general industry standard. At the level of full-process management and control, the entire production line has realized a full-process automated closed-loop control from raw material feeding to finished product filling. Hundreds of real-time operating parameters are dynamically optimized through the industrial Internet platform. Before leaving the factory, products undergo multi-dimensional online testing, and the quality control compliance rate remains stably above 99%.
At present, the large-scale production line of low-cyclic vinyl silicone oil built in China has an annual production capacity of 5,000 tons, covering all conventional grades with viscosity ranging from 100 mPa·s to 350,000 mPa·s. At the same time, it can customize special products with tailored vinyl content and molecular chain structure according to customer needs. Some high-temperature-resistant modified models can work stably for a long time in the environment from -50℃ to 250℃, and the temperature resistance upper limit of specially improved grades exceeds 300℃, which can fully meet the differentiated application requirements of different industries. More importantly, all mass-produced products have passed a number of international authoritative environmental protection and safety tests such as ROHS, REACH, FDA and LFGB, fundamentally meeting the world’s most stringent regulatory access requirements.
With the stable supply of domestic low-cyclic vinyl silicone oil, its application scenarios are rapidly expanding from traditional general fields to high-end strategic sectors such as new energy, electronic information and aerospace, providing key support for the technological upgrading of downstream industries.
In the new energy vehicle industry, low-cyclic vinyl silicone oil, as the core base material of the potting adhesive for new energy vehicle battery thermal management, its extremely low small molecule volatilization avoids the precipitation of volatile substances on the surface of the battery cell during long-term charging and discharging, greatly improving the insulation reliability and long service life of the battery pack. The product has been batch applied in the power battery packaging links of many mainstream new energy vehicle models, helping vehicle manufacturing enterprises reduce supply chain costs while improving product safety performance. In the field of Chiplet advanced packaging, the silicone gel prepared from high-purity low-volatility vinyl silicone oil is filled in the gaps between chips, which has excellent stress buffering performance and dielectric stability, can effectively reduce the thermal stress concentration problem in the multi-chip packaging structure, and greatly improve the long-term operation reliability of advanced packaging devices. It has now entered a number of domestic 12-inch advanced packaging production lines for batch application.
In the field of aerospace and high-end equipment, the fluorosilicone sealing material prepared from high vinyl content modified vinyl silicone oil has excellent fuel resistance, extreme temperature resistance and aging resistance, and can work stably for a long time in the fuel pipelines of aero-engines and sealing structures of high-speed aircraft. It has completely got rid of the situation that such materials were previously completely dependent on imports, providing a solid guarantee for the supply chain security of China’s high-end equipment. In the field of biomedical, medical-grade silicone rubber products prepared from low-cyclic vinyl silicone oil meet the biocompatibility requirements of medical-grade materials due to their extremely low small molecule residues, and can be widely used in the production of implantable medical devices, medical catheters and other products, helping to improve the quality of China’s medical consumables industry. In addition, this series of products has also achieved large-scale promotion in scenarios such as high-end liquid silicone rubber injection molding, special coating modification and precision electronic component lubrication, showing extremely strong industrial adaptability.
The current global organosilicon industrial pattern is in a stage of in-depth restructuring. On the one hand, some traditional overseas organosilicon production capacities are planned to be phased out by the end of 2026, resulting in a shrinking supply of high-end global organosilicon products. On the other hand, global environmental protection thresholds represented by the EU REACH Regulation continue to rise, and a large number of products produced by traditional processes will gradually withdraw from the mainstream market. Against this background, the technological breakthrough of China’s vinyl silicone oil industry comes at an opportune time. Relying on the complete supporting advantages of the entire industrial chain and leading environmental compliance capabilities, it is rapidly seizing the share of the global high-end market.
For a long time, China, as the world’s largest organosilicon producer and consumer, saw its organosilicon exports reach 820,000 tons in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 18.3%, among which the export growth rate to the European market exceeded 30%. Previously, limited by the performance shortcomings of high-end products, China’s organosilicon export products have long been dominated by basic general grades with low added value. The mass production of this full-spectrum low-cyclic vinyl silicone oil directly fills the supply gap of domestic high-end reactive organosilicon polymers, promoting China’s organosilicon industry to upgrade from "scale advantage" to "technological advantage". As more and more downstream high-end manufacturing enterprises choose domestic vinyl silicone oil products, the autonomy and controllability level of the entire organosilicon deep processing industrial chain will be further improved. At the same time, it will also drive the continuous enhancement of the competitiveness of China’s organosilicon products in the global high-end market, which is expected to reshape the industrial trade pattern of global vinyl silicone oil in the next few years, writing an important footnote for the high-quality development of China’s new chemical materials industry.
