Acrylic Material Explained

What Is AKRYLON® Acrylic? The Material Behind Retro Panes

Retro Panes are made from acrylic (PMMA), specifically AKRYLON®, manufactured in Slovakia by 3A Composites, a specialist European acrylic manufacturer. It's the same family of material used in shopfitting, museum display cases, and architectural glazing, chosen for its clarity, strength, and long-term stability rather than as a cheaper glass substitute.

This page is a starting point. If you want the detail behind a specific claim, we've written two focused guides:

Does Acrylic Block UV Light?: what AKRYLON® actually does (and doesn't) filter out, and how it compares to glass.

Does Acrylic Yellow Over Time?: why older acrylic used to discolour, and why modern AKRYLON® doesn't.

Why We Use Acrylic Instead of Glass

Secondary glazing panels need to be light enough to handle safely, especially for DIY fitting, optically clear enough not to distort the view through your original window, and durable enough to justify a long warranty. Acrylic hits all three in a way glass often doesn't.

Weight is the most immediately obvious difference. Acrylic is roughly half the weight of glass at the same thickness, which matters. We developed our overall Retro Panes specifically to be lightweight (hollow aluminium frame, etc.). By keeping our Retro Panes lightweight, the added weight onto the sashes stays as low as possible, to reduce the risk of a potential rebalancing of the sashes. Most sashes weigh between 30-40kg; by adding our Retro Panes, we increase their weight by 2-3.5kg, which is normally covered by the friction and the overall balance of the existing setup.

Clarity is the second factor. High-quality extruded acrylic like AKRYLON® transmits around 92% of visible light at 2mm thickness, comparable to, and in some cases slightly ahead of, standard glass, which typically sits in the 80–90% range depending on type and thickness. In practice, this means a Retro Pane doesn't noticeably dull or tint the view through your original window.

The third factor is impact resistance. Acrylic is significantly tougher than glass of the same thickness; a stray football, an accidental knock while cleaning, or a curious pet is far less likely to end in a smashed pane and a dangerous mess of shards. This is also why acrylic doesn't carry the same laceration risk as broken glass if it ever does fail.

 

What "AKRYLON®" Actually Means

AKRYLON® isn't generic plastic sheet, it's a branded, quality-controlled PMMA product manufactured to the DIN EN ISO 9001 quality management standard at 3A Composites' production site in Žilina, Slovakia. That distinction matters more than it might sound, because acrylic quality varies hugely across the market, and cheaper, unbranded sheet can behave very differently over time, particularly when it comes to UV resistance and long-term clarity.

A few specific things worth knowing about the material itself:

•    It's food-contact approved, meeting current European food control legislation.

•    It complies with the EU's REACH chemical regulations and contains none of the substances on the ECHA Candidate List of Substances of Very High Concern.

•    It contains no toxic materials or heavy metals of any kind.

•    It carries a fire classification under EN 13501-1 and UL94 HB for standard grades.

•    It's fully recyclable, and can even be broken back down to its original raw material (MMA) through chemical recycling.

Using a certified material like this is part of how we're able to offer a 10-year warranty on the panes themselves, it's not a guess about how the material might perform, it's backed by the manufacturer's own quality standards.

Sustainability

3A Composites' Žilina production site participates in Operation Clean Sweep®, an industry programme dedicated to preventing plastic resin loss during manufacturing, and the site has made ongoing investments to reduce natural gas, electricity, and water consumption. AKRYLON® production also already incorporates recycled PMMA material recovered from the manufacturing process itself, with an increasing proportion planned over time.

None of this changes how a Retro Pane performs on your window, but if sustainability factors into your decision-making, it's worth knowing the material comes from a manufacturer that treats it as a genuine operational priority rather than a marketing line.

Material Properties - The Short Version

•    UV: AKRYLON® blocks a meaningful portion of UV-B radiation, helping reduce fading in furniture, flooring, and fabrics

•    Durability: Modern AKRYLON® won't yellow, discolour, or become brittle from sun exposure the way older acrylic formulations from the 70s and 80s sometimes did.

•    Strength: Acrylic is genuinely impact- and shatter-resistant, which is why the same material has a long history of use in demanding applications, including aircraft canopies.

•    Warranty: Every Retro Pane is backed by a 10-year warranty on the acrylic itself.

How Retro Panes Are Made

Understanding the basic process helps explain why the material choice matters so much. AKRYLON® arrives to us as large-format extruded sheet, in the sizes relevant to your specific job.

Depending on which Retro Panes product you've chosen, the finished pane is then either fitted within a discreet frame that sits inside your window reveal, or for our magnetic range fixed using a slim magnetic tape strip bonded to the panel edge, which pairs with a corresponding strip fitted to the window reveal itself. Either way, the acrylic itself is doing the heavy lifting: providing the insulating air gap, the UV and noise reduction, and the long-term clarity, while the fixing method is really just about how neatly and removably it sits in your specific window.

This is also why the base material quality matters so much before any of that fitting work happens. A poorly formulated acrylic sheet, however neatly it's cut and fitted, will still yellow, scratch, or degrade over time regardless of installation quality, which is why we start with a certified material rather than treating the acrylic itself as an interchangeable commodity.

Common Questions We Hear About Acrylic

A few assumptions come up often enough in conversations with customers that they're worth addressing directly, rather than leaving unspoken.

"Isn't plastic cheap and flimsy compared to glass?" It's an understandable assumption, since a lot of everyday plastic genuinely is. But architectural-grade PMMA like AKRYLON® is a different category entirely from disposable plastic packaging or budget storage boxes, it's engineered specifically for long-term structural and optical performance, and is used throughout the shopfitting, museum, and construction industries precisely because it holds up to demanding, sustained use.

"Will it scratch more easily than glass?" Acrylic is softer than glass and can scratch if cleaned with the wrong materials, but in everyday household use, with reasonable care, this is rarely a practical problem. It's also worth noting that a scratch in acrylic can often be polished out, which isn't possible with glass.

Where This Matters in Practice

If you're weighing up secondary glazing generally, it's worth being upfront about where acrylic is, and isn't, the right call.

Acrylic secondary glazing works best when your original frames are sound, and the goal is improving thermal performance, reducing noise, or protecting the window from further wear, not compensating for existing frame damage that needs addressing on its own terms.