In 1927, the Canadian chemists Howard W. Matheson and Frederick W. Skirrow invented the plastic polyvinyl butyral. PVB has been the dominant interlayer material since the late 1930s. It is currently manufactured and marketed by a number of companies worldwide. including Eastman (Kingsport, Tennessee, USA) (Saflex-brand PVB), DuPont (Wilmington, Delaware, United States) (“Butacite”-brand PVB), Kuraray Europe GmbH (Frankfurt, Germany) (“Trosifol”-brand PVB and “Mowital / Pioloform” for powdered PVB resins).
The market for laminated glass products is mature. With only minor modifications, the PVB interlayer sold today is essentially identical to the PVB sold 30 years ago. Since its introduction in 1938, the worldwide market for PVB interlayer has been dominated by a handful of large chemical concerns. As a result, inventive efforts have tended toward methods of making the interlayer itself cheaper to manufacture, or making the interlayer easier to handle and less prone to material defects during the process of fabricating laminated glass.