Teflon Flexible Hose The Ideal High-Purity Duct
Teflon hose is a wonderful product that is well suited for a number of applications in large part due to its harsh-chemical resistance. Like many useful inventions, this particular material was found completely by accident in 1938 by a man named Roy Plunkett. Plunkett, who was working for Kinetic Chemicals at the time, was trying to make a new refrigerant agent (now known by the name chlorofluoroccarbon). Instead, by chance and thanks to his curiosity, he discovered the polymerized preflouroethylene, which was later trademarked as Teflon.
Today, a Teflon flexible hose offers the astounding properties of this material inside a number of resilient structures, some of which are perfectly suited to resisting external abrasions. Teflon duct sizes are available in a wide range of I.D. (inside diameters) and a number of standard lengths, which will help to make this particular hosing a perfect fit. Although pricier than other flexible hoses, a Teflon hose one offers the very best in chemical resistance which makes Teflon hose products ideal for high purity applications.
Here’s a breakdown of what a hose lined with Teflon can offer you:
- Unmatched Chemical Resistance
Great for chemical plants, pharmaceutical applications, and pollution control (just to name a few!), this material can stand up to many of the harsh chemical fumes found in a majority of today's industries. These are a few of the chemical fumes that a Teflon flexible hose can stand up against:
- Hydrochloric acid
- Sulfuric Acid
- And many, many more…
What makes a Teflon hose so resistant to chemicals? The composition of the material, as explained by Royston M. Roberts in Serendipity: Accidental Discoveries in Science, gives this material amazing non-stick qualities on a molecular level. Roberts explains that Teflon is a carbon-backed chain, which in turn has two fluorine atoms connected to it. He goes on to say that:
“Fluorine is a very strange element. When it's part of a molecule, it doesn't like to be around other molecules or even the fluorine atoms on other molecules. But it likes other kinds of molecules even less. So a molecule of PTFE [Teflon], being just chock full of fluorine atoms as it is, would like to be as far away from other molecules as it can get. For this reason, the molecules at the surface of a piece of PTFE will repel the molecules of just about anything that tries to come close to it. This is why nothing sticks to PTFE.”
Functionality at Extreme Temperatures
Due to the resilience of the material, a Teflon flexible hose also offers a great range of functionality at extremely diverse temperatures. The temperature range for the material, in hosing applications, can fall between -65 °F and +500°F making it well suited for a number of environments. This, paired with the many available Teflon duct sizes and lengths, makes this a great material to use in a variety of different locations.
A Non-Reactant Material
In applications that see a number of chemical fumes passing through the same area or for places such as clean rooms, where air purity or chemical fume purity must be kept, a Teflon hose is ideal. When you have a material that is built on molecules that repel almost everything, you effectively have a material that will push things far enough away that there is no chance for a reaction! Even in extreme heat, the bonds between the molecules that make up this polymer are so strong that very few things will cause a reaction. This non-reactivity will help maintain the purity and quality of the fumes passing through.
Though less affordable than other options, this particular material offers such an outstanding resistance to a huge variety of chemicals that it is easy to see its worth. This trait doesn’t just make a Teflon flexible hose highly durable, it also makes it excellent for use in applications where the purity of the fumes passing through it must be maintained. Due to the material’s non-reactive molecular structure, a Teflon hose can be used from extremely precise fume transfer such as in pharmaceutical applications or even more abrasive situations like pollution control. The malleability of the material also allows for a number of available Teflon duct sizes, which paired with its wide range of use within different temperatures, makes this very simply a highly efficient, durable, and functional product.