Roy Joseph Plunkett (June 26, 1910 – May 12, 1994) was an American

chemist A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a graduated scientist trained in the study of chemistry, or an officially enrolled student in the field. Chemists study the composition of ...

. He discovered

polytetrafluoroethylene Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) is a synthetic fluoropolymer of tetrafluoroethylene, and has numerous applications because it is chemically inert. The commonly known brand name of PTFE-based composition is Teflon by Chemours, a corporate spin-of ...

(PTFE), better known as Teflon, in 1938.

Personal life and education

Plunkett was born in

New Carlisle, Ohio New Carlisle ( ) is a city in Clark County, Ohio, United States. The population was 5,559 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Springfield, Ohio metropolitan area. History New Carlisle was originally called Monroe, and under the latter name w ...

and attended Newton High School in

Pleasant Hill, Ohio Pleasant Hill is a village in Miami County, Ohio, United States. The population was 1,241 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Dayton Metropolitan Statistical Area. History Pleasant Hill was originally called Newton, and under the latter n ...

. In 1932, he graduated from

Manchester University The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The University of Manchester is c ...

with a B.A. in chemistry. He received his Ph.D. in chemistry in 1936 from

Ohio State University The Ohio State University (Ohio State or OSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio, United States. A member of the University System of Ohio, it was founded in 1870. It is one ...

for his work on ''The Mechanism of Carbohydrate Oxidation.'' He married Dorothy Enola Detrick (1907 – 1984) on August 16, 1935 in Franklin, Ohio. Next, he married Lois Mary Koch (1925 – 1996) on May 14, 1965 in Arlington, Virginia. Plunkett died of cancer on May 12, 1994, at his Texas home at the age of 83.

Career

In 1936, he was hired as a research chemist by E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company at its Jackson Laboratory in Deepwater, New Jersey. In 1938, while attempting to make a new

chlorofluorocarbon Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) are fully or partly Halogenation, halogenated hydrocarbons that contain carbon (C), hydrogen (H), chlorine (Cl), and fluorine (F). They are produced as volatility (chemistry), volat ...

refrigerant, Plunkett's laboratory team discovered

(PTFE), better known as Teflon. In

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

in April 1986, Plunkett shared the story of his accidental discovery at the spring meeting of the

American Chemical Society The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all ...

national meeting in the History of Chemistry section. His story was published in the Symposium Proceedings:Plunkett, RJ ''The History of Polytetrafluoroethylene: Discovery and Development'', pages 261-266 in "High Performance Polymers: Their Origin and Development. Proceedings of the Symposium on the History of High Performance Polymers at the American Chemical Society Meeting held in New York, April 15–18, 1986." Seymour RB and Kirshenbaum GS, Editors, Elsevier, New York, 1986.

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.

The

tetrafluoroethylene Tetrafluoroethylene (TFE) is a fluorocarbon with the chemical formula . It is a colorless gas. Its structure is . It is used primarily in the industrial preparation of fluoropolymers. It is the simplest perfluorinated alkene. It was first repor ...

in the container had polymerized into

, a waxy solid with that was found to have had properties such as resistance to

corrosion Corrosion is a natural process that converts a refined metal into a more chemically stable oxide. It is the gradual deterioration of materials (usually a metal) by chemical or electrochemical reaction with their environment. Corrosion engine ...

, low surface

friction Friction is the force resisting the relative motion of solid surfaces, fluid layers, and material elements sliding against each other. Types of friction include dry, fluid, lubricated, skin, and internal -- an incomplete list. The study of t ...

, and high

heat In thermodynamics, heat is energy in transfer between a thermodynamic system and its surroundings by such mechanisms as thermal conduction, electromagnetic radiation, and friction, which are microscopic in nature, involving sub-atomic, ato ...

resistance. Later in his career, Plunkett was the chief chemist involved in the production of

tetraethyllead Tetraethyllead (commonly styled tetraethyl lead), abbreviated TEL, is an organolead compound with the formula lead, Pb(ethyl group, C2H5)4. It was widely used as a fuel additive for much of the 20th century, first being mixed with gasoline begi ...

, an antiknock agent that made gasoline "leaded," later discontinued over concerns about the toxic effects of

lead Lead () is a chemical element; it has Chemical symbol, symbol Pb (from Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a Heavy metal (elements), heavy metal that is density, denser than most common materials. Lead is Mohs scale, soft and Ductility, malleabl ...

. After that, he directed the production of

Freon Freon ( ) is a registered trademark of the Chemours Company and generic descriptor for a number of halocarbon products. They are stable, nonflammable, low toxicity gases or liquids which have generally been used as refrigerants and as aerosol p ...

, DuPont's brand name for chlorofluorocarbon refrigerant. He retired in 1975.

Awards

In 1951, Plunkett received the

John Scott Medal John Scott Award, created in 1816 as the John Scott Legacy Medal and Premium, is presented to men and women whose inventions improved the "comfort, welfare, and happiness of human kind" in a significant way. "...the John Scott Medal Fund, establish ...

from the city of

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

for an invention promoting the "comfort, welfare, and happiness of humankind". Attendees were given a Teflon-coated muffin tin to take home. Other awards and honors followed. Plunkett was inducted into the Plastics Hall of Fame in 1973 and the

National Inventors Hall of Fame The National Inventors Hall of Fame (NIHF) is an American not-for-profit organization, founded in 1973, which recognizes individual engineers and inventors who hold a US patent of significant technology. Besides the Hall of Fame, it also operate ...

in 1985.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Plunkett, Roy J. 1910 births 1994 deaths Manchester University (Indiana) alumni DuPont people Ohio State University Graduate School alumni American polymer scientists and engineers People from New Carlisle, Ohio 20th-century American inventors Deaths from cancer in Texas

Personal life and education

Career

Awards

References

Further reading

External links