PTFE (Polytetrafluoroethylene)

On 6. April 1938 Roy Plunkett at DuPont opened the valve on a cylinder of tetrafluoroethylene gas, a candidate refrigerant, and nothing came out - though the cylinder still weighed full. Sawn open, it held a white waxy powder: the gas had polymerised by itself. The powder resisted every solvent and acid tried on it, did not melt like other plastics, and almost nothing would stick to it. **US 2,230,654**, "Tetrafluoroethylene polymers", Plunkett, assigned to Kinetic Chemicals, granted 4. February 1941. Its first claim is two words: "Polymerized tetrafluoroethylene." **Tetrafluoroethylene is explosive and is never handled outside a plant.** You build what the material is for: a hinged tilting ramp that measures the coefficient of friction of PTFE against steel, beside nylon, acrylic and steel itself.