Contributed by Isaac Smith, Principal, PPM Consultants
The headline read, 3M to pay New Jersey up to $450M in landmark ‘forever chemical’ settlement. I took a few minutes to read through the article to see the specifics of the settlement and how it might impact other litigation across the U.S. In doing so, I ran across a reference to New Jersey being referred to as the “accidental birthplace of the chemicals [Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)]”. The article went on to add that the first type of PFAS created was polytetrafluoroethylene PTFE, which we all know as Teflon. As with many new discoveries in chemicals or pharmaceuticals, the discovery was made somewhat by accident. In 1938, a post-doctoral scholar, Roy Plunkett, was working for DuPont to find a replacement for hazardous refrigerants when he stumbled across what we now know as Teflon. You have to admit, it is quite ironic that the first PFAS was created by trying to replace other hazardous chemicals, as we now know that many of the group that numbers around 15,000, have significant detrimental impacts to human health and the environment.
Plunkett’s first assignment at DuPont was researching new chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) refrigerants that were seen as great advances over earlier refrigerants like sulfur dioxide and ammonia, which regularly poisoned food-industry workers and people in their homes. Plunkett and his research assistant, Jack Rebok, had produced a hundred pounds of tetrafluoroethylene gas (TFE) and stored it in small cylinders at dry-ice temperatures before chlorinating it. On the morning of April 6, 1938, when he and his helper prepared a cylinder for use, none of the gas came out, yet the cylinder weighed the same as before.
To their surprise, when they opened it up, they found a white powder, which Plunkett had the presence of mind to characterize for properties other than refrigeration potential. He found the substance to be heat resistant and chemically inert, and to have very low surface friction so that most other substances would not adhere to it. Plunkett realized that TFE had polymerized to produce this substance, later named Teflon, had many potentially useful characteristics.
Chemists and engineers in DuPont’s Central Research Department with special experience in polymer research and development investigated the substance further. At first, it seemed that Teflon was so expensive to produce that it would never find a market. Remarkably, its first use was fulfilling the requirements of the gaseous diffusion process of the Manhattan Project for materials that could resist corrosion by fluorine or its compounds. The material was brought to the attention of US Army general Leslie Groves, director of the Manhattan Project, who commissioned DuPont to design a plant that used PTFE seals and gaskets. (The noxious chemicals needed to produce weapons-grade uranium corroded virtually every other material.) When Plunkett’s invention was eventually declassified after the war, DuPont gave it the consumer-friendly name Teflon and found a use more compatible with Cold War capitalism: coating pots and pans.
After inventing Teflon, Plunkett was transferred to the tetraethyl lead division of DuPont, which produced the additive that for many years boosted gasoline octane levels. In 1951, Plunkett received the John Scott Medal from the city of Philadelphia for an invention promoting the “comfort, welfare, and happiness of humankind”. Attendees were given a Teflon-coated muffin tin to take home. Plunkett was inducted into the Plastics Hall of Fame in 1973 and the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1985.
It’s easy to line up and take shots at companies that manufactured PFAS now that we know its impact on human health and the environment but just remember that the same company and man that was celebrated in the mid-20th century for great discoveries are now looked at in a totally different light. As technology and research allow us to better understand various impacts on the environment, it can create a bit of revisionist history. You can only know certain things at certain points in time. PFAS have proven to have a worldwide impact on the environment, and that can’t be disputed, but Teflon and many other PFAS compounds were great inventions and widely used around the world to make things better, and that fact isn’t disputable either.
3M to pay New Jersey up to $450M in landmark ‘forever chemical’ settlement
Roy J. Plunkett | Science History Institute
How Teflon Went From Wartime to Dinner Time | WIRED
The Long, Strange History of Teflon, the Indestructible Product Nothing Seems to Stick to