Reasons for the rapid development of silicone industry abroad

1. Form a large comprehensive enterprise

Several foreign silicone companies have perfect production, sales and after-sales service systems, and have formulated long-term development strategies. They generally start from the synthesis of methylchlorosilane as the raw material, go through the hydrolysis and polycondensation processes, until they are made into various polysiloxane products. They have a mechanism to give play to the company's internal technical advantages, and have a good operating system. These systems make full use of the human resources of domestic colleges and universities, and even foreign countries, to cooperate in the research of new processes, the development of new products, the exploration of new routes, and the production and scientific and technological innovation. In addition, there are government funded and industrial joint Arab research development plans, which are called "government, industry, and education" in Japan and "industry, university, and government" in the United States. This shows that several major silicone companies abroad have formed a complete large-scale integrated system integrating production, research and innovation.

2. Reasonable production and cost reduction

Several major silicone companies abroad have made every effort to rationalize production and reduce costs. In production, we should grasp the key factors that affect product quality and cost to improve competitiveness. For example, continuously expanding the scale of single methyl chlorosilane fluidized bed; The content of dimethyldichlorosilane in methylchlorosilane shall be continuously increased; A gas-phase white carbon black production plant used as silicone rubber filler is established near the methyl chlorosilane production plant to comprehensively utilize methyl trichlorosilane, a by-product in the production of methyl chlorosilane, and recover hydrogen chloride. Dow Corning, Wacker, Rhodia and other companies are the same, and the production scale has reached thousands of tons.

Several foreign silicone companies attach great importance to the recovery of hydrogen chloride, which affects the cost. For example, Rhodia transferred the production of siloxane to facilitate the centralized recovery and utilization of hydrogen chloride. The harmful impurities in the raw metal silicon have a great impact on the content of dimethyldichlorosilane in methylchlorosilane and the synthesis cycle. Dow Corning not only controls the quality, but also requires to master the quantity. After acquiring the metal silicon plant of Brazil CBCC, the company has invested in establishing the largest metal silicon plant in Asia in Shanxi, China, with an annual output of 50 kt of metal silicon; It also invested 3 million US dollars in Dalian, China, and established a metal silicon procurement center - Dalian Dow Silicon Industry Co., Ltd., which covers an area of 10000 m2. Dow Corning provides technical support to relevant metal silicon smelters to purchase metal silicon that meets Dow Corning's quality requirements. After sorting and processing, it is transported to the company's factories in Asia, Europe or the United States.

3. Attach importance to the development of application technology

Several foreign silicone companies have taken applied technology research and market development as the competitive means of silicone product development, and have adapted to the characteristics of technology intensive and application diversity of silicone products; At the same time, they also regard marketing and after-sales service as the life of the enterprise. They not only provide users with product manuals, but also provide detailed application manuals and a variety of reference formulas to help users solve problems in use. For example, Dow Corning has set up a research institute dedicated to the automotive industry in Detroit; Shinyue Chemical also has an electronic material technology research institute dedicated to the electronic industry; GE Organosilicon Department has established application development centers in Dashan, Japan and Shanghai, China; Rhodia has research and development centers near Sao Feng, Lyon, France, and Tsukuba, Japan; Wacker has established technology centers in Japan, Singapore and Shanghai, China.

4. More innovation investment

Several major silicone companies abroad regard scientific and technological innovation and the development of products with independent intellectual property rights as an important factor for sustainable development and maintaining competitiveness. Organic silicon industry is an industry with many products, small batches and high technology content. It is very difficult to create a new product, so we must invest a lot of money and have a perfect research and development system.

Several foreign silicone companies have made full investment in scientific research and development. Take Dow Corning as an example. From 1997 to 1999, the R&D investment was about 200 million US dollars annually, accounting for 7% to 8% of its annual sales. Their research work not only includes new product development, old product update, information, technical and economic research, market research, logistics distribution and business research; They also attach great importance to basic research, and subsidize universities with related majors and companies outside the industry to engage in interdisciplinary research. Recently, Dow Corning has also cooperated with Gen ∞ ∞ r, a biotechnology company, to develop silicone biomaterials for biosensors to control the release of active ingredients; Dow Corning provided the company with the first phase research cost of $35 million, which is expected to bring billions of dollars in sales to Dow Corning in the future.

The depth of basic research can also be measured by the number of patents owned by each company. According to the American patents from January 1, 1996 to January 31, 2000, Dow Corning has 701 pieces, which is far ahead in the global silicone industry; Other companies have 263 more and 62 fewer.

5. Government support

Foreign experience shows that the development of silicone industry is not just an enterprise behavior. As early as 1991, the Japanese Science and Technology Agency implemented a 10-year plan of "Research and Development of Silicon based Polymer Materials", which cost US $74 million. The main content of the plan is to mobilize the power of "government, industry and school" to jointly research and develop silicon containing polymer composites to produce ultra-high strength and super thermal plastics, new super materials for solar energy, construction, semiconductor, automotive and aerospace industries. Before the advent of the new century, Japanese government departments believed that in the 21st century, silicon chemistry and organosilicon compounds were still the focus of development; The Ministry of Economy and Industry still lists the development of organic silicon as an important project for industrial development in the 21st century. In Japan's "next generation industrial base project", silicon containing polymer materials rank first. Not long ago, the European Parliament approved the German government to subsidize Wacker with € 119 million (together with Wacker's own investment, a total of € 400 million) to rebuild and expand its factory in Ntinchritz to an annual capacity of 90 kt siloxane. The government's attention and concern are also reflected in macro management. For example, since the 1960s, the Ministry of Economy and Industry of Japan has carried out statistics on silicone products throughout Japan, published the output of methylchlorosilane and siloxane, and reported the import and export of silicon products. The development of the organic silicon industry is inseparable from the support and attention of the government.