White paper : Silicone Chemistry

In our production site based in France’s Vercors range, we design innovative, highperformance materials. COP, on the strength of its vast and diverse expertise, delivers comprehensive solutions ranging from initial design to on-site use of materials at our clients’facilities.

A historic player in the orthopaedic equipment market, COP has focused its R&D on high-performance materials capable of offering highest levels of comfort and support, all the while ensuring product safety for processing agents and patients alike. Silicones, owing to their high-grade and adjustable technical features, offer solutions to all these requirements.

In nature, silicon is found in form of silica (sand, rocks) or of aluminosilicates. Its use dates back to Antiquity, notably in glass manufacture, but was only isolated in 1824 by Berzelius, a Swedish chemist.
After identifying silicon’s structure, he obtained silicon chloride SiHCl3.

Following Berzelius’ discovery, numerous researchers began studying this element, giving birth to silicon chemistry. Silicon chloroform was obtained in Germany by Friedrich Wöhler, who is said to have originated the denomination “silicone” (reputed to be a contraction of the words “silicon” and “ketone”, although in truth no carbon/silicon analogy of that type exists); Friedel of France and Crafts of the US studied silicon chloride SiCl4 and another German, Landenburg, investigated the formation of polysiloxane oils. Only in the 1940s did new technical requirements arising from the waging of WWII herald the development of silicones.

Silicone synthesis is not a direct process and includes numerous stages, described in Figure 3. Firstly, silicon, extracted from silica, reacts with methyl chloride, which is obtained by the reaction of hydrochloric acid and methanol. After distillation of the chlorosilanes blend thus obtained,chlorodimethylsilane, chemically formulated (CH3)2SiCl2, is…