Tiny, robust, acrylic polymers fuse the shattered remains of Mayan ceramics, shield painted artwork in the Forbidden City, and guard the treasures of Egyptian Kings. Though incredible compounds like these are at the forefront of modern materials science, they were first imagined by German chemist Otto Rohm while still a college student.

In his doctoral thesis, published in 1901, Rohm described a process for combining alcohol with acrylic acid, producing byproducts called esters. In its natural state, acrylic acid was dangerous and hard to handle. But in the laboratory, where he watched these byproducts form tough, clear, flexible polymers, Otto Rohm saw true magic. Inspired by their clarity, flexibility, durability, and high tensile strength, he envisioned acrylic polymers as the building blocks of many useful things to come.

As the Rohm and Haas Company grew, its skillful chemists, engineers, and technicians led the world in the innovative design of acrylic polymers. Among their many creations were special coating vehicles called thermoplastic acrylate solution polymers – later to be known as PARALOID™ resins.

Over the years, these and other PARALOID™ materials (thermosetting resins, water-reducible polymers, and high solids products), along with water-based acrylic emulsions such as ACRYSOL™/RHOPLEX™ and PRIMAL™, have become mainstays in the coatings industry. These products enable tougher, more flexible films for industrial coatings, more delicate solutions for use by conservation specialists, and many other applications in between.

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