I have a Zwilling Forte titanium pan with a five-layer T-Ix non-stick coating (which I understand is just the name of the titanium Layers). According to description it's supposed to be super durable (even using metal utensils; that's why I bought it) and suitable for oven up to 250 °C. It's just over a year old and so far I was very happy with it.
Recently it's started to lose the non-stick qualities. I noticed some black spots as well as scratches. I have to admit I'm not very good at caring for it properly so I wondered if it's just burned-on food.
I couldn't get it off, so I was googling how to clean very burned on food. I used just soap (Amway dish drops) and hot water. The final attempt was sodium percarbonate and some boiling water. I was scraping with a plastic spatula. The water came out pretty brown and now it reveals what appears to be peeled-off spots (see picture), and quite a lot of them.
Have I done that with the sodium percarbonate or some other way? I have used a metal spoon literally a handful of times when cooking, never a knife or anything sharp. It's been used a lot in the year, cooking basically everything, including acidic foods. It's been used in the oven quite a bit too.
I noticed some minor scratching after my first use of a metal spoon, but nothing too bad and it still worked pretty well.
Can I still use this safely? Should/can I season it like a cast-iron one to make it work again?
Best Answer
I'm no chemist, but a quick googling shows hydrogen peroxide [sodium percarbonate in water] to be quite aggressive on aluminium.
I'd guess that some light surface scratching, which would otherwise have been quite survivable* in itself, allowed the peroxide to leech under the non-stick surface, attack the aluminium substrate & allow larger flakes to break away.
Been there, done that, with similar aggressive chemical cleaning methods.
In future I wouldn't use anything other than Barkeeper's Friend &/or a mica block to remove any surface patina. See Removing long-term residue from teflon
Judging by the pattern of the damage, I'd say the pan has been used too hot on too small a burner. All the damage & discolouration is in the centre. 'Teflon' & non-copyright substitutes, no matter what toughened aspect the manufacturers claim, really can't stand very high burner temperatures.
As to whether you can use it safely - sure, most of these modern surfaces won't peel off in sheets like old-style teflon, nor are they 'poisonous', so it's reasonably safe to use. Can you get it back to truly non-stick… doubtful. You can kind of season aluminium, so you could give it a go - oiled, upside down in the oven, same as iron or steel, but don't expect miracles.
Personally, I'd mark this one down to experience & treat your next one more kindly. I'd also studiously ignore any claim you can use metal utensils &/or put in the dishwasher.
*A lot of these new style 'not teflon' pans seems to have a roughened surface, which I imagine allows the very tops of the 'bumps' to suffer some abrasion, whilst keeping the majority of the surface unscathed.
I now have a couple of these, one cheap as chips, the other an arm & leg; and shall be monitoring their progress over the next few years. So far, so good.