Some controversy has emerged in the European market of frying pans and kitchenware since serious problems has been detected on the use of “Teflon” coatings, which are the most widely used to get non-stick performance at the moment. This controversy is mainly caused by two reasons:

1. The first one is that the vapors released when the material reaches temperatures around 400-500ºC are toxic and therefore harmful for health.
2. The second reason is that such Teflon coatings tend to detach small particles of the material from their own composition, which remain adhered to the cooked food and they are also toxic and harmful for health. In addition, they removal from human body is negligible and the accumulation of these particles can end up in serious health problems, according to some studies which have been carried out lately.

For this reason, the recent trend of the market has been to gradually replace the Teflon coatings by ceramic coatings which, in principle, would avoid the problems/drawbacks before mentioned. However, this type of ceramic coatings have other disadvantages such us its high cost and the intrinsic fragility of the material. Thus, the use of metallic elements to cook such as forks or spoons can cause deterioration of the coating and therefore the loss of non-stick properties. In the same way, any small impact or hit can cause the coating to peel.

The coating created by our company, Tecnadis METALCOAT “Easy-To-Clean”, deals with major disadvantages or drawbacks of the previous coatings, having the following benefits:

• It is certificated for food contact by the German company Intertek Consumer Goods GmbH, which has validated that the coating does not contain heavy metals and that the risk of migration of coating’s components to food is null.
• It has a high resistance to scratching and impacts, so that the loss of performance due to deterioration of the coating is highly unlikely.
• The quality-price ratio is much higher that the teflonated or ceramic coatings since its non-stick performance is really awesome (it allows to fry eggs without oil) and it has a high durability. Furthermore, the thickness of the layer of our coating Tecnadis METALCOAT “Easy-To-Clean” is between 2-4 microns versus the 30 microns of the Teflon coatings, what means also an economical saving regarding the quantity of the material applied per frying pan. On the other hand, the process of application of Tecnadis METALCOAT “Easy-To-Clean”, is much easier than for the other two cases (Teflon and ceramic coatings), not needing chemical or physical surface pretratment and using lower curing temperatures, which also involves significant energy savings and thus a reduction in production costs.

Summarising, Tecnadis METALCOAT “Easy-To-Clean” is able to replace the use of Teflon and ceramics coatings that are nowadays used in frying pans, saucepans, pots and other types of kitchenware, getting extraordinary results in terms of non-stick performance, even cooking eggs without oil, and having other advantages such as scratch and impact resistance in comparison with Teflon and ceramic coatings, higher durability, easier application process and better performance-price ratio.

For these reasons, Tecnadis METALCOAT “Easy-To-Clean” has been also introduced in the sector of kitchenware after attracting the interest of some of the most important kitchenware brands at national and global level.

Other main advantage of Tecnadis METALCOAT “Easy-To-Clean” is that it can be applied on kitchenware of many different materials such as stainless steel, enamelled metals, cast iron, and ceramics since it does not need especial surface preparation. In the case of ceramics frying pans and dishes for the hospitality sector, the coating is applied to facilitate their cleaning, removing completely traces of grease or food leftovers with water, without rubbing with scourers or using decaling agents, saving in this way cleaning time and human and material resources such as water and detergents consumption.