Why does burning food make it stick to a pan?
In: Chemistry
Food sticks due to a mechanical bond with the hot surface of the pan.
When heated, the pores in the metal open up and the molecules of the burnt food get smaller, allowing them to get trapped in the pores of the metal. Some foods will stick to certain metals through a chemical bond where the food and the metal swap some molecules and fuse together like glue.
As remediality mentions, water is the most abundant solvent on earth and a very good solvent for SOME things. For example, oil is not soluble in water. Water molecules are very wet, hehe, and can work their way into and break the mechanical and sometime the chemical bonds. However, detergents make water “wetter” and thus a better solvent.
The other part of removing burnt bits is that by agitating or scrubbing with the water expedites its penetration into stated mechanical and sometimes chemical bonds.
So, you might ask why foods don’t stick to teflon and one reason is that there are essentially no pores in the teflon to open up and grab the food, and it is chemically inert, such that it prevents chemical bonding.
So, you might then ask if teflon is the slipperiest thing known to man, how the heck do they get it to stick to the pan? And that would be a good question for you to google and see for yourself!
*I literally typed the question into Google, I mean I don’t wanna offend people but come on Google does exist*
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