 
Teflon
Roy J.
Plunkett (1910-1994), a native of New Carlisle and graduate of The Ohio State University
(M.S., 1933; Ph.D., 1936), accidentally discovered the stick-resistant surface
coating that became known as Teflon while doing research on refrigerants at the
DuPont Company.
On April 6, 1938, at DuPont's Jackson Laboratory
in New Jersey. Plunkett pumped freon gas into a cylinder which was left in cold
storage overnight. Surprisingly, the gas had dissipated into a solid white
powder. Rather than toss out the "mistake," Plunkett and his assistant decided
to test the material. They found it had two interesting properties: it was
very slippery, and it did not react with most chemicals. Because of both of
these properties, the material would eventually revolutionize many processes,
most notably cooking and cleanup.
 Tetrafluoroethylene was both stick- and heat-resistant, leading
to practical uses in products ranging from cookware to space suits. It was
marketed for the first time as DuPont TeflonŽ in 1945. Molecularly speaking,
Teflon is huge. The molecular weight of Teflon can exceed 30,000,000 atomic mass
units. It
is one of the largest molecules known to man.
The surface of Teflon is so incredibly smooth
that it quickly became the surface of choice for cooking pans.
After discovering TeflonŽ at the age of 27,
Plunkett went on to a full career, working
at DuPont for several decades on teams that developed myriad fluorochemical
products and processes that have positively impacted the
electronics, plastics, and aerospace industries, as well as many others.
Did You Know?
- TeflonŽ was first used by the U.S. military in
artillery shell fuses and in the production of nuclear material for the
Manhattan Project.
- Plunkett graduated with a B.A. in chemistry
from
Manchester College
in Indiana in 1932. He earned his master's in 1933 and his Ph.D. in
1936, both from
The Ohio
State University.
- The molecular weight of a substance tells
how many grams are in one mole of that substance. The mole is the standard
method in chemistry for communicating how much of a substance is present.
One mole is defined as 6.02 x 10^23 atoms or molecules of any substance. The
atomic mass units (amu) of all the atoms in a given formula is the molecular
weight. An amu is defined 1/12 the weight of the carbon-12 isotope. The
symbol amu is referred to as u (a lower case letter u). Carbon-12 weighs
exactly 12 amu.
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