The Story Behind "Happy Pan"

Teflon was an accidental creation in 1983, by a young boy name Roy J. Plunkett, who took a new job in DuPont. It is a polymer with high versatility and offering various advantages. It can be dissolved by using certain metals or hot fluorine gas, which shows that it is highly resistant to corrosion. It is a slippery and smooth material. Due to these properties is mostly used for coating purposes to different machine parts which are most likely subjected to heat and friction. Laboratory equipment and cooking utensils are also coated with a plain layer of Teflon. Scientist considered this invention “An example of serendipity, a flash of genius, a lucky accident” or they consider it a mixture of all three. Whatever the situation is, one thing is confirm and to the point that PTFE modernized and revolutionized the plastic industry. It also gives birth to certain other timeless applications that are helpful for the mankind. It was consider that the production of Teflon may increase over passing years and make it beneficial for human use. It was said that the demand for “Happy Pan” in USA reach 1 million per month and Production of Teflon will surpass 240,000 tons by the year 2022.

Concept Map

1-Polymer Name

Polytetrafluoroethylene is commonly known by its trade name, Teflon. It is a popular polymer, a plastic like substance, which we can produced as a product of polymerization reaction of a monomer Tetrafluoroethylene. It is a polymer with high versatility and offering various advantages. It is used to make non-stick cookware or anything else that is corrosion and resistance free. It is quite useful for medical applications because human body easily adapt this polymer. Therefore we use to make different parts of the body. PTFE has a long backbone chain of carbon atoms, to which fluorine atoms are attached.

2-Introduction

We commonly used Teflon as a trading and registered name for a polymer called Polytetrafluoroethylene. It is one of the special, highly useful and strongest kinds of plastic called fluoropolymers.

“A polymer is that type of compound in which small repeating units’ combines together through different types of chemical reactions to form large molecular weight compound.”

Some commercially important synthetic fibers are high molecular weight polymers, like Nylon and polyesters with vast range of applications in industry. Teflon has wide range of distinctive properties, which makes it highly valuable in the field of applications. Due to high value of boiling point, it is very stable at low temperature. It can be dissolved by using certain metals or hot fluorine gas, which shows that it is highly resistant to corrosion. It is a slippery and smooth material. Due to these properties is mostly used for coating purposes to different machine parts which are most likely subjected to heat and friction. Laboratory equipment and cooking utensils are also coated with a plain layer of Teflon. It is a good electrical insulator because it has low electrical conductivity, so we used it to insulate some communication cables and for the production of semi-insulators. It is clear that it contains wide range of applications in different areas of interest.

4-Nomenclature

The IUPAC name of Polytetrafluoroethylene is Poly (1, 1, 2, 2-tetrafluoroethylene). This name is used internationally for the convenience. Structural formula of PTFE is as follow:

5-Chemical structure

“A similar structure to Polyethylene”

PTFE is a vinyl polymer, having structure similar to polyethylene. PTFE follows free radical mechanism and formed linear chain polymer. The chemical structure of TFE is similar to ethylene, but the only difference is that TFE contains Fluorine atoms instead of hydrogen, while the rest is similar to ethylene. It the size of fluorine atom that makes the polymer chain uniform and gives continuous sheath around the carbon-carbon bond. This property provides good chemical strength and resistance to the parent molecule. Fluorine also provides electrical resistance to the polymer.

Fluorine atoms have strange properties. When it becomes the part of one molecule, it does not like to make bonds with other molecules or even with other fluorine atoms of other kind of molecules. So, the PTFE polymer that is surrounded by fluorine atoms would like to be far away from other types of polymers. Due is the reason the surface of the Teflon coating material repels any other molecular compound, and makes its surface non-stick.