We create product displays, podiums, jewelry cases, and more… -All the way across the board to custom acrylic aquariums that we have created to be placed in professional establishments. As we explore the choice between glass and acrylic, we can’t help but wonder how acrylic materials are so much more clear than glass.

A study of the light that passes through materials has shown that while conventional glass will typically filter out much light including some in the visible spectrum, acrylic resin (Plexiglas) does not.  It leaves light untouched for the most part.

Why is this important? If I was using a display case for living plants, or creating a top for a reef aquarium, I would need to be certain that the deep parts of the ultraviolet spectrum are passing through to my plants and animals.  Glass may diminish the health of my live stock, and in the case of corals, leave them drab and gloomy.

Scientists have discovered that while glass will usually start to take much of the visible and invisible light spectrum out, Acrylic / Plexi will not.  Acrylic material has the same refraction pattern as water.  Glass is all over the place and is simply expensive to engineer it for the spectral output one desires. Please see the chart below to compare Acrylic, Glass, and the light measured on an average (good weather) day. Clearly, we can see how the glass starts to filter out the upper visible spectrum and in other charts can be seen to be unreliable in other parts of the EM spectrum.  

Note: We’ve created this sample graph from data pulled from the internet on many sites.  It is approximate.  Glass can be made to have many different spectral readings, but it seems to always loose out somewhere.  This is simply to illustrate how wonderfully CLEAR Acrylic is.  Many reef keeping web sites have deep data to support this as the marine community relies heavily on acrylic for this reason.

“I sell jewelry, why should I care?”  Light is the most important piece of the puzzle when a vendor has product on display.  This is why so many stores invest in special lighting for their cases, and their displays.  So with such an investment, would you want to diminish the effect by as much as %15?  I think not.  This is precisely why using a truly “Clear” substance like acrylic materials is important.  Making a piece of jewelry shine is the key, and using acrylic displays is the closest you can get to using the sun. 

In fact, if your location uses natural lighting, you will have an even larger gain from using this spectrally clear substance.

On top of weight, durability, safety, and repair, we can now add more beautiful to the reasons to use custom acrylic displays instead of glass.  This difference can be the selling point as your product jumps to life.

Whether you want a safe solution, an easy solution, or the best and clearest… we have the skill and materials to create a custom acrylic creation for you today~

Check out our website and give us a call! www.clearindustries.com | 800.383.0458

Dan Weber – Marketing, Clear Industries