Short answer
Has your pan got a smooth, evenly coloured nonstick coating, with nothing anywhere telling you what that coating is made of? Then it is almost certainly PTFE. And PTFE is PFAS.
You do not need to be a chemist to spot it. Three things give it away: there is a maximum temperature printed on it, the maker calls the surface “nonstick” without saying nonstick what, and the box says “PFOA free” as if that were something special. Run through the checks below and you will know in thirty seconds.
PFAS, PFOA, PTFE and Teflon: four words, one family
PTFE is not an alternative to PFAS. PTFE is PFAS. That is the misunderstanding the whole debate keeps tripping over.
In the shop and on the packaging, four words get used as though they mean the same thing. They do not, and that gap is exactly what makes a pan sound better than it is.
| Word | What it is |
|---|---|
| PFAS | The umbrella name for a family of thousands of substances built around a carbon fluorine bond. Not one substance, but a whole group. |
| PTFE | One of those substances. It is the smooth coating itself. So a PTFE pan is, by definition, a pan with PFAS on it. |
| Teflon | A brand name for PTFE. Same substance, different label. “Teflon free” tells you something about the brand, not about the chemistry. |
| PFOA | A processing aid that used to be used in making PTFE. Banned in the European Union since 2020. |
And there is the catch. “PFOA free” does not mean “PFAS free”. Since 2020, every pan you can legally buy in Europe is PFOA free, because that is simply the law. Printing it on the box is not a seal of approval. It is like putting “contains no lead” on a kettle.
How to tell in thirty seconds whether your pan has a PFAS coating
Go and fetch the pan and run through these five points. Three or more hits and you know enough.
- 1
Is there a maximum temperature on it? A PTFE coating has a ceiling, and the maker has to tell you where it is. A pan with no coating that can break down does not need that ceiling in the same way.
- 2
Does it only say “nonstick coating”, without saying what the coating is? Anyone proud of a surface names the material. Leaving it out usually has a reason.
- 3
Is the coating evenly smooth and coloured? That flat black, grey or white skin lying over the base is the classic look of PTFE.
- 4
Is “PFOA free” used as a selling point? Then the coating is almost always PTFE. Otherwise it would have said “PFAS free”, because that is a far stronger claim.
- 5
Can you see scratches, dull patches or spots where food suddenly does stick? Then the coating is on its way out. And the question worth asking yourself is where it has gone.
While the coating is intact, very little happens
The trouble with a nonstick coating is not the day you buy it. It is the two hundredth time you cook in it.
An intact PTFE coating leaves you alone. But it does not last forever. Every spatula, every scouring pad, every time you let the pan get too hot takes a little off. That is not an opinion, you can see it happening: the pan you have used daily for three years no longer releases the way it did at the start. Something is missing. And what has come off has not vanished into thin air, it has ended up in your food and around your kitchen.
Never leave a nonstick pan empty over a high flame. An empty pan gets far hotter in a few minutes than a pan with food in it, and high temperatures are exactly where a PTFE coating starts to break down.
Do you keep birds? The fumes from an overheated nonstick pan are deadly to birds. Never keep them in the kitchen or anywhere near it.
What do you do with the old pan?
Not in with the general rubbish. A frying pan is mostly metal, and that is worth handing in separately.
Under the coating there is aluminium or steel. That recycles perfectly well, the coating does not. So take the pan to your local recycling centre or the scrap metal point rather than dropping it in the bin. Some charity shops will take it as well, but only while it is still usable; a pan with half the coating gone does nobody a favour.
And take your time over it. You do not have to replace the whole cupboard in one go. Start with the pan you use every day, because that is where the difference is. The one that only comes out twice a year at Christmas can stay where it is.
Which cookware does not have PFAS, and what to look for
With a pan that has no PTFE on it the question changes: not “how smooth is the coating”, but “what is the surface attached to”.
Once you start comparing cookware without PTFE, you meet roughly three kinds. They do not do the same job.
| Kind | What it is attached to | What that means |
|---|---|---|
| Coating on thin aluminium | A layer on a soft carrier | It bends and warps in the heat, and then the coating lets go. The cheapest category, and usually the shortest life. |
| Bare stainless steel | No coating at all | Lasts more or less forever, but it asks for technique: heat it through properly and only then add the food, or it sticks. |
| Solid steel with a quartz sand surface | Silicon dioxide, bonded to three layer steel | Releases the way you are used to, with no coating that can flake off. |
Look at the thickness of the base as well. A thin base warps and gets hot spots, so your food catches in one place while it is still raw in another. That is not a coating problem, that is a construction problem, and no coating on earth solves it.
What a DotShield pan does differently here
No coating that can wear away, but a quartz sand surface on three layer solid steel.
The nonstick surface on DotShield is made from natural SiO₂, which is quartz sand. Completely free of PFAS, PFOA and PTFE. Under it there is no thin disc of aluminium but tri ply steel: 304 stainless on the inside, an aluminium core to spread the heat and 430 stainless on the outside, so it works on induction too. It goes in the oven up to 300 degrees Celsius. We are not going to hand you a test result, because we have none to give you. What we can hand you is what the surface is made of and what it is stuck to, so you can weigh it up yourself.
base thickness on the frying pans, against 2.5 mm on the saucepan, wok and stockpots
in the oven, and suitable for gas, induction, ceramic and electric hobs
guarantee, because there is no coating to come off in year two
Start on a medium heat. Quartz sand needs no fierce flame to release.
A little oil or butter helps, even though the surface is nonstick.
Hand washing is recommended. No scouring pads, just a cloth and warm water.
Where most people start
Not everything at once. The best PFAS free pan is the one you reach for every day, so start there.
- DotShield Frying Pan 24cm · the size for two, with a 3.5 mm base
- DotShield Frying Pan 28cm · for the family, or for when you would rather do it all in one go
- DotShield Starter Duo 4 piece · two pans with lids to begin with
- DotShield Family Set 5 piece · the complete basis for everyday cooking
Frequently asked questions
Is PFAS in pans banned?
No, not yet. What is banned in the European Union is PFOA, and that has been the case since 2020. For the wider PFAS family there has been a European restriction proposal since 2023, submitted by five countries including the Netherlands. That is still being dealt with. So today you can walk in and buy a pan with PTFE on it, which is exactly why it is worth looking at what you are buying.
Do all nonstick pans have PFAS?
Not all of them, but the classic smooth coating is PTFE, and PTFE belongs to the PFAS family. Check three things. Is there a maximum temperature on it? Is the surface called “nonstick” without saying what it is made of? Is “PFOA free” used as a plus point? Two or three times yes and it is almost certainly a PTFE coating. If it says PFAS free or names the material, such as silicon dioxide, you know where you stand.
Do ceramic pans have PFAS?
Not automatically free of it. “Ceramic” is not a protected word and it is also used for coatings that are only partly mineral. So do not go by the word, go by what the maker actually writes down. With DotShield it is spelled out: natural SiO₂ from quartz sand, free of PFAS, PFOA and PTFE.
What is the difference between PFAS free and PFOA free?
PFOA is one single substance that used to be used in making PTFE. PFAS is the whole family, and PTFE is part of it. So a pan can be perfectly PFOA free and still have a PFAS coating on it. And because PFOA has been banned in the EU since 2020, “PFOA free” is no longer an achievement, it is just the law.
Should I throw my old pan out straight away?
No. While the coating is completely intact there is no reason to panic. The moment to replace it is when you see scratches, dull patches, or spots where food suddenly sticks when it never used to. Start then with the pan you use most often, not with the whole cupboard at once.
Where do you take an old frying pan?
To your local recycling centre or the scrap metal collection point. Under the coating there is aluminium or steel, and that recycles well. In the general bin that metal is simply lost. If the pan is still completely sound, a charity shop will often take it too.
Does a pan without a nonstick coating not just stick?
Bare stainless steel does, if you start too cold. But a DotShield pan is not bare steel: the quartz sand surface releases the way you are used to. The difference is that it is not a skin that can flake off. Start on a medium heat and use a little oil or butter, and a fried egg will slide straight out again.
Cooking without having to think about it
A pan where you know what the surface is made of, and that you will still be using in five years. More than 300,000 households already clean their kitchen with iZi-Clean.
See the DotShield pans5 year guarantee · 14 days to change your mind. Questions? You can simply reach us.
Want to know what PFAS actually are and why Europe is busy with them? We explain that in PFAS in your frying pan: what you cook with every day. Questions about one particular pan? You get a real person on the line with us.