Reply #34: A primer is used

[jmowreader]

I have of late discovered the University of Southern Mississippi's polymer sciences department's website, which can be a lot of fun if you're a total geek like me.

They're running a fun contest to figure out how DuPont's secret process for making teflon stick to a pan works--apparently they're not telling anyone, mainly because other chemical companies make PTFE.

Anyway, there seem to be two majority opinions: that they use some sort of primer that PTFE will stick to and that they "etch" the PTFE to strip out some of the fluorine atoms in it, which leaves "holes" in the PTFE structure that can be filled by the metal in the pan.