On the occasion of celebrating the centennial of the founding of the Communist Party of China, China's silicone industry ushered in its 70th anniversary. The industry has made remarkable achievements in basic research, engineering technology, production scale, product quality and application. In 2020, the production capacity of silicone methyl monomer in China will reach 60% of the global total, and the output and consumption will reach 50% of the global total. China has become the largest silicone producer and consumer in the world. It is estimated that by the end of 2021, the domestic capacity of silicone methyl monomer will reach 4.405 million tons, accounting for 64.25% of the global capacity of silicone monomer.


The development of silicone industry in China began in the early 1950s. In 1951, Beijing Chemical Experimental Institute of the Ministry of heavy industry used Grignard method to synthesize silicone monomer and trial produce silicone resin, creating a precedent for silicone industry and application research in China. Until the late 1970s, China's silicone industry was in its infancy, and the production capacity of polymers was only 100 tons. Silicone products are also expensive, mainly for military supporting or used in some special industries.


After 1978, Sino foreign joint ventures and wholly foreign-owned enterprises have sprung up in the silicone industry. The introduction of new technologies, new equipment and new products has provided a broad stage for expanding the application of silicone. Especially in the 1980s, a large number of world manufacturing enterprises transferred to China, which greatly stimulated the application of silicone products and promoted the development of silicone industry in China.


In the 1990s, China's silicone industry developed steadily driven by market demand and application technology. Among them, methyl monomer has broken through the bottleneck of 10000 ton production technology, silicone building sealant and structural adhesive have been popularized and applied on a large scale, significant progress has been made in the production technology of hot vulcanized silicone rubber raw rubber, the processing industry of silicone rubber products has developed rapidly, and has become a major global supplier of key rubber products. In terms of R & D capacity, production technology and application fields, China has also rapidly shortened the gap with foreign advanced levels, and initially established a relatively complete Chinese silicone industrial system, which has laid a good foundation for rapid development in the future.


In the new century, the world silicone monomer production has accelerated its transfer to China. In 2004, Dow Corning of the United States and wacker of Germany jointly built a 190000 T / a siloxane project in Zhangjiagang City, Jiangsu Province; In 2006, China Bluestar Group acquired the silicone business of Rhodia, France, and became the fourth largest silicone manufacturer in the world; In 2007, Zhejiang Xin'an Group signed a joint venture agreement with maitu high tech materials group to jointly build a 100000 t / a silicone monomer project in Jiande, Zhejiang Province.


With the continuous expansion of production scale, the technical level of silicone production in China has also been greatly improved. In 2006, the actual annual output of hot vulcanized silicone rubber and room temperature vulcanized silicone rubber exceeded 100000 tons respectively. In terms of high temperature rubber and room temperature rubber, it also realized mass export of technology and products.


In the field of national defense and military industry, silicone has also made great contributions. Silicone materials are not used in national defense industry, but they are very important. All kinds of silicone materials independently developed in China have become indispensable and important supporting materials in national defense modernization, providing a strong guarantee for the smooth implementation of "two bombs and one satellite", manned spaceflight and almost all national major projects.


In 2020, novel coronavirus pneumonia industry has been developing rapidly under the impact of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, and the industry consolidation has intensified. In April 2020, Aiken company, an overseas enterprise of Bluestar company, completed the acquisition of Guangdong Polymerization Technology Co., Ltd. In the same month, the 300000 t / a silicone project of Dongyue silicon materials was started, which is of great significance for Dongyue silicone to enter the top three in China and the top five in the world, to build the whole upstream and downstream industrial chain of silicone and to build a world-class advanced manufacturing base of silicon materials. In December 2020, Xingfa and Lexus established a joint venture to lay out the sealant industry. On July 5 this year, the joint venture was officially established, which is the first silicone sealant enterprise integrating upstream and downstream in China.


Looking forward to the 14th five year plan, Zhu Qingzeng, deputy director of the organic silicon Expert Committee of China fluorosilicone organic materials industry association, said that the industry should seize new application fields such as artificial intelligence, 3D printing and 5g, fill the market gap in key material fields, and promote the development of China's organic silicon materials to high performance, multi-function, compounding, refinement, environment-friendly and low-cost High added value.