The research began with the objective of developing low cost acrylic fibers for construction cement reinforcement. Among the potential technologies for producing these fibers are those that do not use solvents and that could be produced from small to large scale. The one that best suited was the melting spinning, however the main obstacle was that it had never been used industrially for PAN spinning. The major advance known in PAN thermoplastic spinning was that it could be fused using water at temperatures of 150 to 200 ° C and high pressure. Researchers at BASF in 1990 patented a method of melting PAN using water that was shown to be capable of producing filaments, but due to the extreme conditions of high pressure spinning, it was never able to result in commercial products.

Another company, Bristish Petroleum (BP), also developed thermoplastically shaped PAN resins, marketed under the Amlon brand, but they did not have rheological spinning properties. Until recently, these resins were produced by INEOS and marketed under the Barex brand for use in packaging, but their production was over in 2015.

Therefore, advances with PAN thermoplastic spinning research should follow their own path, which has occurred and is being improved over the years.