Roy Plunkett
| Roy Joseph Plunkett | |
|---|---|
| Born |
June 26, 1910 New Carlisle, Ohio, United States |
| Died | May 12, 1994 (aged 83) Corpus Christi, Texas, United States |
| Nationality | American |
| Fields | Organic chemistry |
| Institutions | DuPont |
| Alma mater |
Manchester University (Indiana) Ohio State University |
| Known for | Teflon |
Manchester University (Indiana)
Roy J. Plunkett (June 26, 1910 – May 12, 1994) was an American chemist. He discovered polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), i.e. Teflon, in 1938.
Plunkett was born in New Carlisle, Ohio and graduated from Newton High School in Pleasant Hill, Ohio, Manchester University (BA chemistry 1932) and Ohio State University (Ph.D. chemistry 1936 for his work concerning The Mechanism of Carbohydrate Oxidation ). In 1936 he was hired as a research chemist by E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company at their Jackson Laboratory in Deepwater, New Jersey.
The discovery of Teflon is best described in Plunkett's own words:
On the morning of April 6, 1938, Jack Rebok, my assistant, selected one of the TFE cylinders that we had been using the previous day and set up the apparatus ready to go. When he opened the valve — to let the TFE gas flow under its own pressure from the cylinder — nothing happened...We were in a quandary. I couldn't think of anything else to do under the circumstances, so we unscrewed the valve from the cylinder. By this time it was pretty clear that there wasn't any gas left. I carefully tipped the cylinder upside down, and out came a whitish powder down onto the lab bench. We scraped around some with the wire inside the cylinder...to get some more of the powder. What I got out that way certainly didn't add up, so I knew there must be more, inside. Finally...we decided to cut open the cylinder. When we did, we found more of the powder packed onto the bottom and lower sides of the cylinder.
Plunkett further relates that the cylinders of TFE being used contained about 1 kg each (2.2 pounds) which would be relatively small, lecture bottle sized cylinders, not large cylinders.
The tetrafluoroethylene in the container had polymerized into polytetrafluoroethylene, a waxy solid with amazing properties such as resistance to corrosion, low surface friction, and high heat resistance. Plunkett related the story of this accidental discovery at the spring meeting of the American Chemical Society national meeting in the History of Chemistry section, April 1986 in New York City which was published in the Symposium Proceedings.
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