Krista Kemper and Bart Kemper met with Alexander Petri, the acrylics program manager for Polyvantis at their Weiterstadt, Germany facility. Polyvantis is one of the world leaders in acrylic and polycarbonate products. A 2024 merger of SABIC’s Functional Forms and Röhm’s Acrylic Products, the new company continues the iconic brands of PLEXIGLAS®, ACRYLITE®, and LEXAN™ solutions in polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) and polycarbonate (PC). Polyvantis’ products include making aircraft canopies for NATO air forces, transparent sheets used for solar panels, and the ASME PVHO-designed hulls for the “bubble subs” such as those by Triton Submarines in the US.
Alexander gave Krista and Bart a full tour of the acrylic line, to include the curing room where the window (hull) of the new Triton 4000/2 Abbysal Explorer, which will be diving to the wreck of the RMS TITANIC. We also so their testing laboratories and weathering units. Polvantis makes a number of proprietary products for various clients, so photography was limited to the showcase area. The showcase included one of the first Triton submarine hulls, now one of their prominent display items. Röhm was the company that developed the first acrylic products, so their showcase room goes back decades with multiple displays showing a wide range of products. This showcase area doesn’t go into the other polymers produced by Polyvantis, so there is more to see in our next visit.
Alexander Petri of Polyvantis gave Krista Kemper and Bart Kemper of their acrylic production line and their showcase work, going back to Röhm Gmbh, which had pioneered commercial acrylic products. Krista uses her hand to show how thick the acrylic “bubble” is. Technically called a “window”, the clear acrylic material provides the vast majority of the pressure hull protecting the occupants of the “bubble subs”, such as the Triton submersible shown in the center image.
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