The miracle of Teflon revealed

Alexander Graham Bell’s well-known telephone, Frederick Sevilla’s strange floating umbrella. The Wright Brothers’ complex airplane. Ladislas Biro’s simple ballpoint pen.

People make all efforts to make life easier. Needless to say, most inventions are good, even if some are not as useful as the others. What separates a good invention from a great one though is not just its ability to stand out and stand through time, but its ability to continuously transform and improve people’s lives.

Teflon did, and is continuously doing so.

Now, now, hold that thought (Teflon, the nonstick cookware?) and see how it has transformed from being a good discovery to one of the world’s greatest inventions.

DuPont chemist Dr. Roy Plunkett’s accidental discovery of what turned out to be the most slippery substance known to man started it all. Dupont, one of the world’s most dynamic science companies, registered the Teflon trademark in 1945. Teflon clicked right away the moment DuPont introduced it to the US consumers in 1962. In a matter of five years, the majority of cookware sold in the US was nonstick products that featured the Teflon brand. By the mid-70’s, Teflon had cookware licensees in every developed country in the world.

When you say Teflon, you say non-stick cookware. However, Teflon stood out and took a remarkable leap of imagination as new applications for the product were developed in fields from home cleaners to nail polish to carpets.

It even reached the medical industry – as laboratory gown, eyeglass coatings and surgical insertions. At present, the Teflon brand is licensed to more than 1,000 companies worldwide.

"The heart of Teflon lies in its nonstick characteristic," says James Forte, global brand and IP licensing manager of DuPont. From this branched out the convenience, protection and performance benefits that we now get from it. You might not believe it, but your good old pan-coating Teflon went as far as covering your jeans, your nail polish, even your walls.

Just recently, Teflon zoomed in the Philippines and ushered us into a new world of dirt-free life as a tie-up was made between DuPont and Pacific Paint (Boysen) Philippines. Boysen, the country’s leading paint manufacturer, pioneered another paint innovation with the creation of Boysen’s Virtuoso Silk Touch. "We designed Virtuoso to push the limits of ordinary paints. With its incorporation of Teflon technology, we have the first paint in the country that combines the visual elegance of flat paints and the easy-clean feature of gloss paints," says Johnson Ongking, vice president of Pacific Paint (Boysen) Philippines. "Now, with Virtuoso Silk Touch, people can have both beauty and convenience, they don’t have to sacrifice one for the other."

Teflon revolutionized the plastics industry and gave birth to limitless applications that now benefit mankind. It went through the toughest scrubs, but unlike your frying pan, no abrasive scrubber will scratch the legacy and worth of this great discovery. At the end of the day, Teflon will still be Teflon – the brand that continuously transforms industries and improves lives. That is the miracle of Teflon.