In high-end manufacturing, silicone materials, due to their unique physicochemical properties, have become an indispensable basic material in industries such as medical, electronics, and maternal and infant products. However, the differences between liquid silicone (LSR) and solid silicone (HCR) technologies in terms of cost structure, performance, and process adaptability are profoundly affecting companies' product design and production decisions.
1. Material Properties: Molecular Structure Determines Performance Boundaries
Liquid silicone uses a two-component platinum vulcanization system as its core. Its molecular chains have active functional groups at their ends, allowing for rapid cross-linking and curing under heating conditions. This characteristic gives it three major advantages: First, the vulcanization process produces no byproducts, resulting in a product purity of over 99%, suitable for direct use in food contact products; second, it exhibits excellent molecular structure uniformity, with tear strength 30% higher than solid silicone and resilience retention exceeding 95%; third, its rheological properties are controllable, allowing for micron-level precision molding by adjusting viscosity, meeting the needs of complex structures such as medical catheters and electronic sensors.
Solid silicone uses a peroxide vulcanization system, and its molecular chains have a three-dimensional network structure, giving the material higher mechanical strength and temperature resistance. Experimental data shows that solid silicone products have stable performance within a temperature range of -60℃ to 250℃, and a Shore hardness covering a wide range of 20-80A, making them particularly suitable for automotive seals, industrial gaskets, and other applications requiring extreme environmental conditions. Furthermore, the small amount of volatile substances generated during vulcanization can be completely removed through a secondary vulcanization process, ensuring that the product meets environmental standards.
2. Industry Application Scenarios: Demand Drives Technology Selection
In the medical field, liquid silicone has become the mainstream solution. Taking artificial heart valves as an example, their micron-level flow channel structure requires materials that combine biocompatibility and molding precision. Liquid silicone, through Silicone raw materials injection molding, can achieve uniform molding with a wall thickness of 0.1mm, and the surface roughness of the product is less than Ra0.2μm, significantly reducing the risk of thrombosis. In contrast, solid silicone is more suitable for products with lower flexibility requirements, such as surgical gloves and medical tubing. Its molding process can mass-produce products with a thickness uniformity of ±0.05mm, offering a significant cost advantage. The electronics industry exhibits significant technological differentiation. In wearable devices, liquid silicone, with its self-adhesive properties, can directly bond to engineering plastics such as PC and PBT, eliminating the need for gluing and increasing the production efficiency of smartwatch straps by 40%. In the industrial connector sealing market, solid silicone dominates with its higher compression set (≤15%), and its molding process allows for one-time molding of multi-cavity structures, meeting IP68 protection requirements.
The mother and baby products sector has formed a differentiated competitive landscape. Liquid silicone nipples achieve zero vulcanizing agent residue through platinum curing, achieving a transparency of up to 92%, allowing parents to easily observe the internal cleanliness, and its anti-yellowing properties extend the product's lifespan to over 3 years. Solid silicone, with its cost advantage (40% lower price per unit weight), maintains a market share of over 60% in mass-market consumer goods such as teething toys and tableware, and its molding process can achieve a scale effect of 100,000 pieces per day.
3. Process Characteristics:The Art of Balancing Efficiency and Precision
Liquid silicone injection molding achieves fully automated control throughout the entire process. From precise metering of the two components to mold cavity filling, the entire cycle can be controlled within 15 seconds, making it particularly suitable for multi-variety, small-batch production. A case study from a precision manufacturing company shows that after adopting the liquid process, the defect rate of medical catheters decreased from 3% to 0.5%, and the overall equipment efficiency (OEE) increased to 85%. However, this process demands extremely high mold precision; the cold runner system design must control the runner diameter error within ±0.02mm, resulting in mold costs 2-3 times higher than solid-state processes.
Solid-state silicone molding, on the other hand, demonstrates strong cost competitiveness. Its standardized molds are compatible with various product sizes, and rapid changeovers can be achieved by changing inserts, making it particularly suitable for standardized products with an annual output exceeding 500,000 units. Data from an automotive parts supplier shows that the unit cost of sealing rings produced using the solid process is 28% lower than that produced using the liquid process, and the scrap recycling rate can reach 95%, further reducing material waste. However, this process suffers from significant efficiency bottlenecks, with a single vulcanization cycle requiring over 180 seconds, and manual operations (material cutting and placement) accounting for 35% of production time, limiting large-scale flexible production capabilities.
4. Technological Evolution Trends: Collaborative Innovation Opens New Tracks Currently, the two major technological routes are showing a trend of convergence. In the liquid silicone field, breakthroughs in the development of self-adhesive materials have made composite molding of dissimilar materials possible. One company's LSR-PC integrated molding technology has been successfully applied to the manufacture of diabetes insulin pens, reducing the assembly process from 7 steps to 1. In the solid silicone field, supercritical fluid-assisted molding (SCF) technology can achieve product density uniformity of ±1.5%, significantly improving the fatigue life of industrial rubber products.
Industry experts point out that in the next three years, the penetration rate of liquid silicone in high-end fields such as medical microfluidic devices and Medical Grade Body Silicone will increase to 45%, while solid silicone, due to its cost advantage, will maintain a market share of over 60% in major markets such as automotive sealing and building waterproofing. Enterprises need to establish a dynamic technology evaluation system based on product positioning, and find the optimal solution in the three dimensions of accuracy, efficiency and cost in order to gain an advantage in the fierce market competition.
Shenzhen Hong Ye Jie Technology Co., Ltd
