History

The first acrylic acid was created in 1843. Methacrylic acid, derived from acrylic acid, was formulated in 1865. The reaction between methacrylic acid and methanol results in the ester methyl methacrylate. In 1877 the German chemist Wilhelm Rudolph Fittig discovered the polymerization process that turns methyl methacrylate into polymethyl methacrylate. In 1933, the brand name "Plexiglas" was patented and registered by another German chemist, Otto Röhm. In 1936 Imperial Chemical Industries (now Lucite International) began the first commercially viable production of acrylic safety glass. During World War II both Allied and Axis forces used acrylic glass for submarine periscopes and aircraft windshields, canopies, and gun turrets. Airplane pilots whose eyes were damaged by flying shards of PMMA fared much better than those injured by standard glass, demonstrating the much-increased compatibility between human tissue and PMMA as compared to glass.^[5]

Names

Common orthographic stylings include polymethyl methacrylate^[6][7] and polymethylmethacrylate. The full chemical name is poly(methyl 2-methylpropenoate). (It is a common mistake to use "an" instead of "en".)
Although often called simply "acrylic", acrylic can also refer to other polymers or copolymers containing polyacrylonitrile. The other notable trade names include:

• Acrylite, a trademark of Evonik Cyro since 1976^[8]
• Lucite (not leucite, although they sound alike), a trademark of DuPont, first registered in 1937^[9]
• R-Cast, a trademark of Reynolds Polymer Technology. Founded in 1987 after spinning off from Reynolds & Taylor. They specialize in large scale and thick monolithic acrylic.^[10]
• Plexiglas, a trademark of ELF Atochem, now a subsidiary of Arkema in the US,^[11] a trademark of Evonik Röhm GmbH in other parts of the world.^[12]
• Optix, a trademark of Plaskolite^[11]
• Perspex, a trademark of Imperial Chemical Industries^[11]
• Oroglas, a trademark of Rohm & Haas^[13]
• Altuglas, also a trademark of Rohm & Haas^[14]
• Cyrolite, a trademark of CYRO^[11]

• Sumipex, a trademark of Sumitomo Chemical