Poly(methyl methacrylate) (Plexiglas)
Polimetilmetacrilato (Plexiglás)
- Date
- 1928-1933 · confidence high
- Place
- Darmstadt, Germany
- Credited to
- Otto Röhm, Walter Bauer and William R. Conn (Röhm & Haas)
- Field
- Matter & energy
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Chemists at the German company Röhm & Haas, including Otto Röhm and Walter Bauer, developed poly(methyl methacrylate) in 1928, a transparent and resistant plastic marketed from 1933 under the brand Plexiglas, while Britain's ICI independently patented its own version under the name Perspex.
The development of PMMA was almost simultaneous and independent in Germany (Röhm & Haas, Plexiglas brand) and the United Kingdom (ICI, Perspex brand, by Rowland Hill and John Crawford), leading to some commercial dispute over priority.
What it led to
- a light, shatter-resistant substitute for glass in aviation, architecture and signage
- widespread use in aircraft windshields and canopies during the Second World War
- later applications in medical implants, intraocular lenses and art