Teflon is the trademark name for PTFE, a type of plastic. If you own any non stick cookware, then you probably use PTFE on a daily basis. You might not realize, as you fry your morning eggs, that PTFE is one of the most slippery materials that can be manufactured. It’s about as slippery as wet ice. 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.