Since 2025, the butyl rubber industry has shown the development characteristics of "increasingly standardized standards, expanded application scenarios, and continuous improvement in quality" under the multiple promotion of improved technical standard system, penetration of downstream emerging fields, and demonstration and leadership of leading enterprises. As a key material in the fields of sealing and anti-corrosion, the butyl rubber industry is clarifying market boundaries through standard upgrades, expanding application space through technological adaptation, and providing more reliable material support for new energy, building energy conservation, and other fields.
The continuous improvement of the technical standard system has laid a solid foundation for the industry. In recent years, the construction of standards for the domestic butyl rubber industry has accelerated, gradually filling the gap in standards in specific fields. At the end of 2024, the State Administration for Market Regulation and the National Standardization Administration jointly released the new national standard "Butyl sealants for insulating glass" (GB/T 14683-2024). Compared with the old standard in 2003, three key indicators have been added: "VOCs content limit", "moisture and heat aging resistance performance", and "harmful substance limit". Among them, it is clear that VOCs emissions must be ≤ 100g/L, and the bond strength retention rate after moisture and heat aging resistance testing should not be less than 80%. This standard will be officially implemented on July 1, 2025, promoting the transformation of industry products from "basic sealing" to "environmental protection and durability"; At the same time, the China Rubber Industry Association released the group standard for "Butyl sealant for photovoltaic modules", which stipulates that the water vapor transmission rate of products should be ≤ 0.15g/m ² · d, and the performance degradation rate after UV aging (xenon lamp 10000h) should not exceed 15%, in response to the needs of photovoltaic scenarios. Currently, 18 companies have certified their products according to this standard, covering more than 60% of the domestic photovoltaic butyl rubber market share. The improvement of the standard system promotes industry reshuffle. In the first half of 2025, more than 30 small and medium-sized production capacities that do not comply with the new national standards will exit, and the average pass rate of industry products will increase by 18 percentage points compared to 2024.
Expanding downstream emerging application areas opens up growth opportunities. With the development of industries such as new energy and cold chain, the application scenarios of butyl rubber have extended from traditional construction to diversified fields. In the field of photovoltaic module packaging, butyl rubber has become the core sealing material due to its excellent water vapor barrier properties. In the first half of 2025, the demand for butyl rubber for photovoltaic modules in China reached 62000 tons, a year-on-year increase of 45%. Among them, top module enterprises such as Longi and Jinko accounted for more than 70% of the purchase volume of butyl rubber, mainly used for edge sealing of double glass modules to ensure a 25 year service life of the modules; In the field of cold chain logistics, butyl rubber is used for sealing insulated glass in refrigerated trucks and cold storage due to its low thermal conductivity and low temperature resistance. In the first half of 2025, the consumption of butyl rubber for cold chain reached 18000 tons, a year-on-year increase of 38%. A cold chain equipment enterprise stated that refrigerated trucks sealed with butyl rubber reduced the heat loss rate of the box by 20% and significantly reduced energy consumption; In the automotive field, butyl rubber is a key material for tire inner tubes and window seals. By the first half of 2025, the demand for butyl rubber for automobiles will reach 35000 tons, with the proportion of butyl rubber for new energy vehicles increasing to 35%. It is mainly used for sealing and waterproofing battery packs, meeting the high sealing performance requirements of new energy vehicles.
The technological practices of leading enterprises lead the direction of industry development. Domestic leading butyl rubber enterprises promote the dual improvement of industry quality and scale through technological research and development and production capacity layout: Zhejiang Xinhui New Materials Co., Ltd. relies on the "Provincial Butyl Rubber Engineering Technology Research Center" to develop the production technology of "high-purity halogenated butyl rubber". The precision of bromine content control in the product has been improved to ± 0.2%, and the impurity content has been reduced to below 50ppm. In the first half of 2025, the sales proportion of this product in the photovoltaic and automotive fields reached 42%. At the same time, the company's annual production of 100000 tons of halogenated butyl rubber project was put into operation in June 2025, further enhancing the self-sufficiency of high-end butyl rubber in China; Yanshan Petrochemical has reduced the fluctuation range of Mooney viscosity of its butyl rubber products to ± 3 by optimizing the polymerization process, significantly improving batch stability. In the first half of 2025, its butyl rubber products will have a market share of 28% in the field of insulating glass, an increase of 8 percentage points compared to 2024; In addition, enterprises are accelerating their green production transformation. Zhejiang Xinhui has invested 120 million yuan to build a butyl rubber wastewater treatment and waste heat recovery system, achieving an 80% wastewater reuse rate and a 15% reduction in production energy consumption, promoting the industry's transformation towards green manufacturing.
Collaborative development of the industrial chain alleviates cost pressures. The breakthrough in the localization of key upstream raw material polyisobutene for butyl rubber provides support for cost reduction in the industry: In the first half of 2025, the total production capacity of polyisobutene in Shandong Qilu Petrochemical and Tianjin Petrochemical reached 250000 tons, and the self-sufficiency rate of polyisobutene in China increased from 32% in 2020 to 75%. The cost of raw material procurement was reduced by 20% to 25% compared to imported products, effectively alleviating the cost pressure on butyl rubber enterprises. At the same time, downstream equipment companies have launched intelligent production equipment adapted to butyl rubber. A fully automatic butyl rubber coating machine developed by a machinery company in Guangdong has a coating accuracy controlled within ± 0.5mm, and production efficiency has increased by 50% compared to traditional equipment. By the first half of 2025, the penetration rate in insulating glass production enterprises will reach 45%, promoting the improvement of industry production efficiency.
Industry experts point out that the butyl rubber industry has entered a new stage of "standard led, application driven, and collaborative development". With the implementation of the new national standard and the increasing demand in emerging fields, it is expected that the total demand for butyl rubber in China will exceed 280000 tons by 2025, of which the demand in high-end fields (photovoltaics, new energy vehicles) will account for 40%. In the future, the industry will further focus on three directions: "research and development of environmentally friendly formulas", "adaptation to specific scenarios", and "localization of the industrial chain", promoting the transformation of butyl rubber products from "universal" to "high-performance customized", and providing more solid material support for the development of high-end manufacturing in China.
