What is the difference between liquid silicone rubber and solid silicone rubber?
1. Liquid silicone rubber
Compared with solid high-temperature vulcanized silicone rubber, liquid silicone rubber is liquid rubber, with good fluidity, fast vulcanization, more safety and environmental protection, and can fully meet the food level requirements.

2. Solid silicone rubber
Solid silica gel is a saturated polymer elastic material, which has a wide range of applications due to its high temperature resistance, cold resistance, solvent resistance, creep resistance, adhesion resistance, electrical insulation, chemical resistance and other characteristics.

Comparison of liquid silicone rubber and solid silicone rubber
1. Appearance
a. As the name implies, liquid silica gel is in liquid state and has fluidity;
b. Solid silicone rubber is solid without fluidity.

2. Safety
a. Liquid silicone rubber is a food grade material with high transparency and safety. During molding, no auxiliary materials such as vulcanizing agent are added, and it is sealed and fed;
b. Solid silicone rubber is a transparent and environment-friendly material. During molding, vulcanizing agent shall be added to cure the molding time. Open mold feeding molding is required.

3. Forming method
a. Liquid silicone rubber is injection molded liquid silicone rubber (LSR): its full name is injection molded liquid silicone rubber, and the curing equipment is injection molding machine.
The injection molding machine has many advantages, such as very simple process flow (no need of manual processes such as batching, rubber mixing, cutting, and placing in the high temperature rubber process, and only one worker can take the product), high product accuracy (all manual procedures are replaced by the machine before molding), high output (A/B rubber is mixed at a certain temperature for a few seconds to form), saving people, electricity, and materials, and can produce all products produced by high temperature rubber.
b. Solid silicone rubber molding is that the raw materials are solid pieces. After mixing in the mixer, the cutting machine will cut the products and molds into appropriate sizes and thicknesses, and then put them into the mold. The molding will be done at a certain temperature under the pressure molding machine. Demoulding is similar to plastic products, and the mold needs to be cleaned.

Silicone products are mainly formed in the following six ways:
1. Molding
The molding process is the most common. It is mainly completed by mold coordination, and the mold shape determines the shape of silicone products. The molded silica gel products are usually formed by applying pressure through the vulcanizing machine table after the solid silica gel raw material with vulcanizing agent is put into the high-temperature mold, and the high-temperature sulfur is solidified. The hardness of the molded silica gel is usually 30 ° - 80 °. This production process is relatively simple and applicable to all silica gel products.

2. Ejection (injection)
This process requires high quality. It is a combination of liquid silica gel and plastic.
Its products are characterized by good thermal stability, cold resistance, excellent electrical insulation, and no toxic substances during combustion.
Therefore, it has become an irreplaceable material in the production and design of health products, automobiles, baby products, medical supplies, diving supplies, kitchen appliances and seals.

3. Solid state injection
During the processing of solid silica gel products, the injection process is very similar to that of liquid, but the production method is the same as that of solid, using the same machine and raw materials. However, the mold is the same as that of liquid silica gel, mainly extruding the material to the root of the product. This method can use the same hardness of solid silica gel, forcefully extrude it into the mold cavity through the pressure of the machine and shape it. However, compared with liquid silica gel materials, Naturally, it is not as good as its liquidity.

The advantage of this processing method is that the product can avoid many poor appearance, and the control of the parting line is good. It is mainly aimed at some customers to avoid some problems of the appearance of the parting beauty and product quality. It also has many disadvantages, such as a large amount of glue, high cost, and complex processing. It is necessary to add the middle plate of the mold and need to lift the mold core manually. The manpower is large, and the product processing efficiency is low, So this is one of the reasons why few silica gel products manufacturers use this processing technology at present!

For solid silicone rubber, please check the details:
https://www.siliconerubbers.net/product-modified-htv-silicone-rubber.html