The solution came to Dr Sarah Williams through an unexpected route. During a conference, she struck up a conversation with a specialist in material safety, who pointed her towards a relatively unknown alternative.
“He told me about a company that makes a frying pan from pure medical-grade titanium,” she explains. “What immediately caught my attention was that the non-stick effect didn't come from a coating, but from a surface inspired by the lotus leaf effect.”
“That's exactly what makes it so special,” she continues. “Virtually all traditional non-stick pans rely on a coating. And every coating eventually wears out. With this pan, the cooking surface is made from solid titanium with a specially engineered microstructure. There is no layer that can peel, flake or wear away.”
Even so, she remained cautious.
“As a doctor, I'm naturally sceptical. When something is presented as the solution to everything, I want to see the facts first.”
That is why she decided to look more closely into the material itself.
“I began studying the scientific literature on titanium. The same material has been used for decades in medical implants, dental applications and other situations where reliability is essential. That gave me a great deal of confidence in the properties of the material itself.”