In the wave of global transformation towards green and functional organic silicon materials industry, ethyl silicone oil, as the core category of special silicone oil, is undergoing a key leap from "quantity increase" to "quality change". In 2025, China's ethyl silicone oil industry will successfully break the international technological monopoly through catalyst optimization, molecular design and other technological innovations, achieve import substitution in high-end fields such as electronic packaging and biomedicine, and promote the industry to move towards a new stage of high-quality development.


Technological Breakthrough: From "Following" to "Running Together"
Ethyl silicone oil, due to its unique ethyl substituent structure, has excellent high temperature resistance, chemical stability, and low surface tension properties, and is widely used in electronic insulation, lubricants, defoamers, and other fields. However, the traditional production process of ethyl silicone oil has problems such as wide molecular weight distribution and high volatile organic compounds (VOCs) content, which makes it difficult to meet the stringent requirements of high-end scenarios such as semiconductor packaging and medical devices.


Catalyst Innovation: Precise Control of Molecular Structure
In 2025, the "dual core supported platinum catalyst" jointly developed by Zhejiang University and Hesheng Silicon Industry achieved a breakthrough. The catalyst achieved a decrease in the molecular weight distribution index (PDI) of ethyl silicone oil from 2.5 to 1.3 by regulating the distribution of active centers, resulting in a product purity of 99.9% and a volatile content of less than 0.05%. This technology enables ethyl silicone oil to replace imported materials in chip packaging, reducing signal transmission loss by 30%. "The project leader introduced that the technology has been validated in enterprises such as SMIC and Changjiang Storage, and is expected to achieve large-scale application by 2026.


Green technology: reducing environmental load
In response to the pain points of high energy consumption and high emissions in traditional processes, Hubei Xingfa Group has developed an integrated process of "continuous hydrolysis condensation". By optimizing the reaction conditions, the hydrolysis efficiency of ethyltrichlorosilane was increased to 98%, the wastewater discharge was reduced by 40%, and the carbon emissions per unit product were reduced by 25% compared to batch processes. The low VOCs ethyl silicone oil produced by this process has passed the EU REACH certification, and its export volume will increase by 60% year-on-year in 2025, mainly sold to international giants such as BASF in Germany and Shinetsu in Japan.


Market restructuring: high-end demand drives industrial upgrading
With the explosive growth of industries such as 5G communication, new energy vehicles, and artificial intelligence, the demand structure of the ethyl silicone oil market has undergone profound changes. Data shows that the global market size of ethyl silicone oil will reach 820 million US dollars by 2025, with the proportion of high-end electronic products jumping from 15% in 2020 to 35%, while basic products will fall into a price war due to homogeneous competition, with gross profit margins falling below 10%.


Electronic packaging: domestic substitution acceleration
In the field of semiconductor packaging, ethyl silicone oil, as a key filling material, directly affects the heat dissipation performance and reliability of chips. In the past, the market was monopolized by companies such as Dow Corning in the United States and Wacker in Germany, with domestic companies having a market share of less than 5%. In 2025, Chongyao Technology's "ultra-low dielectric constant ethyl silicone oil" successfully entered the supply chains of Huawei and SMIC, with its dielectric constant (Dk) value reduced from 2.8 to 2.3, meeting the packaging needs of process chips below 5nm. This product reduces the thickness of the packaging layer by 20% and increases the signal transmission speed by 15%, "said the R&D director of Chongyao Technology.


Biomedical: Opening up a new track
The biocompatibility advantage of ethyl silicone oil makes it have great potential in the medical field. In 2025, the "medical grade ethyl silicone oil" developed by Shandong Dongyue Group passed FDA 510 (k) certification and is used as an artificial joint lubricant and drug sustained-release carrier. Clinical trials have shown that this product can reduce joint wear rate by 40% and extend drug release cycle to 30 days, which is three times higher than traditional materials. At present, Dongyue Group has established cooperation with companies such as Johnson&Johnson and Medtronic, and it is expected that the proportion of medical grade product revenue will reach 20% by 2026.


Future outlook: Technology drives global competition
Faced with the competitive pressure from international giants, Chinese ethyl silicone oil companies are building barriers through the dual wheel drive of "technology+ecology". On the one hand, leading enterprises are increasing their R&D investment, with the industry average R&D intensity increasing from 3.2% to 5.8% by 2025, focusing on cutting-edge fields such as molecular design and functional modification; On the other hand, by vertically integrating the industrial chain, companies such as Hesheng Silicon Industry have achieved full chain control from quartz ore to terminal products, expanding their cost advantage to 15%.


By 2028, the market share of high-end products of ethyl silicone oil in China is expected to increase from the current 25% to 40%. Experts from the China Fluorosilicone Organic Materials Industry Association predict that with the increasing requirements for material performance in emerging fields such as AI computing chips and flexible displays, the ethyl silicone oil industry will enter a new stage of "technology defined market", and Chinese enterprises are expected to take the lead in this transformation.