What is Teflon, and how to take care of your kitchen utensils?
It turns out that his discovery began with another staple of the modern kitchen.
Roy Plunkett, a DuPont employee, discovered polytetrafluoroethylene. In 1938, Plunkett was hired to develop a new, less toxic chemical for use as a refrigerant. One day Plunkett created a mixture to produce a gas and let it sit overnight. Instead of the gas he was expecting, and he found a white, waxy, rather slippery substance the next morning. After running some tests, he discovered that it was polytetrafluoroethylene or PTFE.
