Plexiglas

Plexiglas is a brand name for acrylic glass (chemical term polymethyl methacrylate, or PMMA for short). The brand owner on the European, Asian, African and Australasian continent is Röhm GmbH., while the owner on the American continent is Arkema S.A.

History

Chemist Otto Röhm began researching special plastics with the aim of finding a type of “acrylic latex”. He had already laid the foundations for this research in 1901 with his dissertation on Polymerisationsprodukte der Acrylsäure (Acrylic Acid Polymerization Products). However, he initially entered into a business relationship with his partner Otto Haas in 1907, founding the company Röhm & Haas which manufactured enzymatic products for the leather industry. As the growing production site began turning a profit, Röhm once again turned to his research on acrylics. He did not achieve his original goal of creating artificial latex from the viscous polyacrylate compounds, however, the company entered the acrylate business in 1928 with the manufacture of multi-layer safety glass. After the success with acrylates, Röhm turned to methacrylates at the end of the 1920s, where he and his team achieved the decisive breakthrough. The discovery was made more by chance than anything else: A sample of the methyl methacrylate (MMA) monomer was stored in a bottle placed by a window. The polymerization reaction was triggered as daylight hit the bottle. This reaction destroyed the bottle and left behind a block made of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA). During further experiments, the team was successful in polymerizing the raw material in a controlled manner between conventional glass panes thereby producing thin acrylic panels. The new material was named “PLEXIGLAS” and registered as a brand in 1933. The trademark was registered the same year on December 4 under the number 461639.

In 1936, the partner company Rohm & Haas Company which was founded in 1909 as a branch in Philadelphia by Otto Haas, gained the knowledge on how to produce acrylic glass (PMMA), subsequently receiving a registered trademark for the PLEXIGLAS® brand in the USA.

In 1970, the Haas family sold its part of the company to Röhm & Haas GmbH. As a result, the company transferred the naming rights of Rohm and Haas to the corporation in Philadelphia and agreed to no longer use the “& Haas” part of the name. On January 1, 1971, the company in Darmstadt was established as Röhm GmbH. Shortly thereafter, the company sold the Haas part of the company to BASF AG.

In 1976, Röhm GmbH joined forces with an American partner to form the subsidiary CYRO Industries Inc. to manufacture and sell acrylic glass under the ACRYLITE brand name.

Röhm GmbH was sold to Hüls AG in Marl in 1989, the same company which had purchased the Röhm shares from BASF AG nine years prior. Hüls AG was later incorporated in the Degussa AG group, where the products under the Plexiglas from Röhm brand formed a separate business unit.

During this period, Rohm & Haas Philadelphia and the European chemical group, Elf Atochem, formed an acrylic glass joint venture under the name AtoHaas Americas Inc. Six years later, Elf Atochem took on sole ownership of the joint venture by procuring all Rohm & Haas shares in it. A short time later, AtoHaas Americas Inc. and Elf Atochem North Inc. merged to Atoglas. In 2003, the company split its acrylic glass brands, selling acrylic glass under the Plexiglas brand in North and South America, while its acrylic glass products were sold under the Altuglas brand in other market regions.

In 2006, Degussa AG was taken over by RAG in Essen, with parts of the acquired group being used to form Evonik Industries AG in 2007. Degussa’s previous business was taken over by the new company, Evonik.

Evonik sold the methacrylate compound business in March 2019, enabling the newly founded Röhm GmbH to take over this business. Röhm GmbH has since been selling PMMA products under the Plexiglas brand in Europe, Asia, Oceania/Australia and Africa, while the products are sold under the Acrylite brand on the American continent. Trademark regulations separate the acrylic glass Plexiglas made in and only for America by Arkema from the other acrylic glass products under the original Plexiglas brand from Röhm GmbH, Germany.

Products and applications

Acrylic glass products under the Plexiglas brand are available in the form of molding compounds, solid sheets, blocks, films, tubes, rods, multi-skin sheets and corrugated sheets.

The applications have become very diverse over the past few decades. Today, technical and designer products are manufactured from the acrylic glass. The Plexiglas acrylic glass products are used in many different sectors, such as furniture manufacturing, communication technology, trade fair construction, the automotive industry, the aerospace industry, optoelectronics and for constructing noise protection barriers, large aquariums and swimming pools. In addition to sheets, films, tubes and rods, molding compounds also play a key role within the polymethyl methacrylate portfolio as a starting product for all injection molding and extrusion applications.

Advertising and marketing

Ever since the word mark Plexiglas was registered, the corresponding logos have also been continuously developed:

Year	Logo	Image description	Notes
1939		Old logo of the registered trademark, 1939	First logo of the Plexiglas brand
1942		Old logo of the registered trademark, 1942	The logo from 1942 was procured in 1940. The “Plexiglas rune” depicts the letters P and X (and is therefore known as the “PX” logo) and was combined with the brand name in capital letters to form a cohesive logo.
1952		Old logo of the registered trademark, 1952	In 1951/1952, the sales department desired a characteristic logo in cursive instead of capital letters. This lettering was combined with the rune logo. As the combined logo was too bulky and difficult to use in advertising, the rune became a secondary image and the Plexiglas lettering was preferred.
1957		Old logo of the registered trademark, 1957	From 1957, the “PX” image – the rune – was used in combination with the words “Röhm & Haas Kunststoffe” into the 1960s.
1965		Old logo of the registered trademark, 1965	The font used in the advertising campaign with “King Acrylius” was then used.
2002		Old logo of the registered trademark, 2002	In 2002, this logo was created which included the addition of “the original from Röhm”. This was the company’s attempt to push back against the inflated use of the term “Plexiglass” for all types of plastics and set itself apart from the competition. The blue “Plexiglas turbine” depicts the extrusion snail which is used during the manufacturing process of extruded sheets.
2011		Old logo of the registered trademark	In 2011, the “Plexiglas” brand and the logo were relaunched, with the “turbine” having been replaced by the “swing”. This aims to show openness, limitless creativity and dynamism and express the fact that PLEXIGLAS® has been used in the most varied applications for over 80 years – from architecture and automotive manufacturing, to medical technology and power generation.
2019		Current logo of the registered trademark since 2019	The logo from 2019 emphasizes Röhm GmbH as the new owner. The word-image trademark displays similarities to the Röhm company brand and is characterized by a “straightforward and confident appearance”. The fracture in the letters X and A represent the transparency, lightness, vibrancy and plasticity of the versatile material.

References

Category: Poly(methyl methacrylate)

References

This article "Plexiglas" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Plexiglas. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

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