What makes Teflon so slippery?
Teflon is chemically similar to another, more common plastic: polyethylene, the material used to make plastic bags and other plastic containers.
Chemically, polyethylene is made from long chains of carbon atoms with hydrogen atoms bonded to the sides of the chains. To make Teflon, the hydrogen atoms of polyethylene are replaced by fluorine atoms.
Fluorine Atoms
It’s the fluorine atoms that give Teflon its slipperiness. Fluorine atoms are physically bigger than hydrogen atoms. Their large size makes them huddle around the central carbon chains in a much tighter formation.
This tight formation works like a kind of chemical armor, protecting the carbon atoms which in turn hold the molecule together.
Chemical Teamwork
This chemical teamwork between carbon and fluorine makes Teflon extremely chemically stable, and it’s this chemical stability that makes Teflon so slippery.
Foreign substances, like a frying egg, can find no chemical foothold on the fluorine armor, so they simply slide away.