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Saedius t1_iupn77z wrote

I'm betting it would still stick because of the high affinity of organosulfur compounds for gold surfaces (https://www.nature.com/articles/nchem.1352 and references therein). As long as the amino acid cysteine or things that contain it are present (and they are pretty much ubiquitous) I think the food would likely stick to the surface in some capacity.

Fun fact - this Au-S affinity underpins the many of the uses of the analytical technique Surface Plasmon Resonance, which is a fantastic binding assay they can tell you many things about protein interactions with other molecules. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_plasmon_resonance

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ZeBeowulf t1_iuroe3n wrote

This is correct, when something sticks to a pan its because it chemically binds to it. For it to be non-stick you need to have the surface be made of extremely stable bonds. Like the C-F bonds in Teflon.

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