Over time, teflon manages to become coated by polymerised oils, similarly to the intentional seasoning on an iron pan. This tends to make the pan just too sticky for such as fried eggs.
I have tried the usual suspects – nylon mesh pan scrubs, Barkeeper's Friend & similar, those little bricks of mica, bicarb. – and all work to some extent, but none get it right back to the original 'teflon'. The substrate is aluminium, so even though a heavy oven cleaner will work well, it also damages any areas with scratches.
With cheap pans ($£€ 25 or so) I usually throw them out once they get to this stage, but for the last few years I've had a really good, expensive one. I retired it to dry frying only & replaced it a while ago, but it turns out it's still actually better than a new cheap one after just a year.
So, I'm back to trying to get this one back to an as-new state on the inside (the outside I really don't care about).
Does anyone have any sure-fire method I've not yet tried? Good for aluminium, bad for organic polymers.
Best Answer
You cannot use physical methods (scratching), so you are only left with the chemical ones. And for this kind of gunk, the only thing I know to work is a strong enough base.
In the mildest cases, oven cleaner sprays might be sufficient. If not, somebody suggested ammonia in the comments, and then there is lye.
The big problem is that any base strong enough to clean this stuff will corrode aluminum too. If your pans are teflon on steel, go ahead and clean them. If they are aluminum pans, maybe you can try the oven cleaner as a last ditch effort, but you are risking the pan itself. Else, all you can do is continue use them as normal sticky pans.
The usual modus operandi is actually not to clean them somehow, but not to let the gunk happen. Just like you don't use metal on Termin, to prevent the failure mode of "scratched pan", you don't use techniques which produce gunk, to prevent the failure mode of "gummed up pan". This means that you have to avoid anything with small amounts of oil, and either use the pan without oil (at low temperatures though, or you'll burn the coating), or with lots of oil at moderate temperatures, or for wet cooking.