April 6 marks the anniversary of the accidental discovery of Teflon. Roy Plunkett and Jack Rebok at DuPont’s labs were looking for alternative refrigerant gasses. Chlorofluorocarbons (CFC) tend to have low boiling points and are ideally suited for use in refrigerators. The men were testing various combinations of CFC. Plunkett charged cylinders with a hundred pounds of tetrafluoroethylene (TFE). He stored the […]