The high-end industry relies on ethyl silicone oil to accelerate the upgrading of green processes and applications


1.Structural contradictions have become prominent, and the industry is facing the pain of transformation
The current domestic ethyl silicone oil market shows a significant structural imbalance: the national total production capacity has exceeded 120,000 tons per year in 2023, an increase of 68% compared with 2019, but the inventory of mid-to-low-end products is seriously overaccumulated, and the operating rate has long been hovering around 55%. Meanwhile, high-purity and high-stability products needed in high-end fields are heavily dependent on imports. The import volume reached 18,000 tons that year, up 22.4% year-on-year, and the import unit price was 3.6 times that of domestic general-purpose products. This pattern of "excess of low-end products and shortage of high-end ones" has become a key bottleneck restricting the high-quality development of the industry.


2. Breakthroughs in green technologies break through the bottleneck of production efficiency
Facing industrial predicaments, the research and application of green synthesis processes are becoming the key to breaking the deadlock. In traditional production, the synthesis yield of intermediates is only 62% to 68%, the steam consumption in the distillation stage is as high as 3.8 tons per ton of product, and there are also problems such as unorganized emissions of VOCs. The development of new processes such as electrocatalytic silicon-hydrogen addition, under the combined effect of green electricity and carbon price policies, is expected to achieve cost advantages in 2026-2027, driving the penetration rate of green production capacity to rise from less than 5% to over 25%. The promotion of the solvent-free process has further reduced the residual organic solvents in products from 1000 PPM to below 10ppm, significantly enhancing the competitiveness of the products.


3. High-end applications are making efforts to bind with strategic emerging industries
Driven by demand, ethyl silicone oil is accelerating its penetration into the high-end manufacturing sector. In the field of new energy vehicles, the high-temperature resistant models compatible with power batteries can withstand cycle tests from -40 ℃ to 150℃, with the shear strength attenuation rate controlled within 8%. The packaging of photovoltaic N-type cell modules requires that the product achieve a Si-H bond retention rate of over 99.5% and a low volatile content of less than 0.1%. In addition, in chip packaging, its thermal expansion coefficient matching that of silicon wafers can increase the yield rate by 15%, and in the lubrication application of wind turbine gearboxes, it can even extend the maintenance cycle from six months to two years.


4. The policy standards provide a clear path for industrial upgrading
The improvement of the policy and standard system has provided strong support for the industry's transformation. The National Key Research and Development Program's "Advanced Structures and Composite Materials" special project has included high-performance ethyl silicone oil in its support scope. The number of related patent applications is expected to increase by 22% year-on-year in 2024. Meanwhile, the revised version of the "National Standard for Silicone Products" was implemented, setting stricter regulations on indicators such as viscosity range and thermal stability. The tightening of environmental protection policies has forced enterprises to upgrade pollution control facilities, promoting a reduction of over 18% in the comprehensive energy consumption per unit of product. Driven by the coordinated efforts of technology, market and policy, the ethyl silicone oil industry is gradually transforming from a cost follower to a value creator.