The rise in screen protectors being made out of ‘PMMA’ for its durability is on the rise so it left us asking the question, What is PMMA?
The General description on Goodfellow has the following ‘PMMA (Polymethylmethacrylate) often just called ‘Acrylic’ is a large family of chemically related polymers – PMMA is an amorphous, transparent and colourless thermoplastic that is hard and stiff but brittle and notch sensitive. It has good abrasion and UV resistance and excellent optical clarity.
The properties of Polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) are below:
|
Property |
|
|
|
Permeability to Oxygen @25C |
x10-13 cm3. cm cm-2 s-1 Pa-1 |
0.1 |
|
Permeability to Water @25C |
x10-13 cm3. cm cm-2 s-1 Pa-1 |
500 |
PMMA is often used as a lighter, shatter-resistant alternative to glass in everything from windows, aquariums and ice hockey rinks. It really is hard to fathom that this easy to process versatile material is also used in dentures and bone implants. PMMA is made through a process called polymerization. The menthyl methacrylate is placed into a mould along with a catalyst that is added to speed up the process. Due to this process, PMMA can be shaped into many forms such as sheets, blocks, beads and even dentures!
PMMA is an incredibly durable product with high transparency and fully touch-sensitive so it really is no surprise PMMA screen protectors are so popular