New nonstick coating acts like Teflon – but without the forever chemicals
Using a new chemistry technique called nanoscale fletching, scientist have created a high-performance nonstick coating that repels water and oil and, importantly, provides a safer and more environmentally friendly surface – ideal for cookware and other everyday uses.
University of Toronto (U of T) engineers have designed a super-thin coating that begins with polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), a flexible silicone polymer used widely in everything from contact lenses to medical devices. It's transparent, inert, nontoxic and has a high temperature resistance. On its own, however, it can't repel oils like coatings made from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) – forever chemicals. One of the most famous PFAS for this kind of use is, of course, Teflon (the brand name for polytetrafluoroethylene, or PTEE).
“The material we’ve been working with as an alternative to PFAS is called polydimethylsiloxane or PDMS,” said Kevin Golovin, a professor at U of T Engineering. “PDMS is often sold under the name silicone, and depending on how it’s formulated, it can be very biocompatible – in fact it’s often used in devices that are meant to be implanted into the body. But until now, we couldn’t get PDMS to perform quite as well as PFAS.”
