Nonstick bakeware: what’s really on your baking pans

What to do before you buy

Baking pans rarely say what they’re coated with. In the Ecology Center’s test, most baking pans made no eco-friendly or “PFOA-free” claim at all, whatever the coating.¹ So the work falls to you, and it’s quick.

• Start with uncoated pans. For baking, the Ecology Center suggests glass, cast iron or ceramic.¹ Our materials guide compares them.
• Find out what the coating actually is. “Nonstick” alone could mean PTFE, silicone/polyester or epoxy. All three turned up on baking pans in the same test.¹
• Look past trade names. In the Ecology Center’s test, the two baking pans whose coatings were PTFE-based carried trade names on the label: DuraGlide PLUS on a cake pan and TEFLON Xtra on a muffin pan.¹
• Treat “PFOA-free” as a non-answer. PFOA is one chemical. The Ecology Center’s own words: “PFOA-free doesn’t mean PFAS-free.”¹ Our PFAS-free explainer goes deeper.
• Give “PTFE-free” more weight, then ask for proof. The Ecology Center says a pan that says “PTFE-free” likely doesn’t contain PFAS, and that otherwise you can’t be sure.¹ Still ask who tested it, how and when. Our label decoder shows what each answer is worth.

Going with glass?

Glass is a favorite for a reason. Iowa State Extension prefers it because “there are no hazardous materials to leach into food.”¹¹ It can shatter with a sudden temperature change, though, and much of the glass bakeware sold in the U.S. is tempered soda-lime rather than borosilicate.¹¹

• Set hot glass on a dry potholder or towel, never on a wet or cold surface.¹¹
• Skip the stovetop and the broiler, and don’t go straight from the freezer to the oven.¹¹
• Toss dishes with chips, cracks or scratches.¹¹

Our cookware care guide has the full list.

If you already own nonstick bakeware

No need to clear out the cupboard tonight. A Belgian consumer group that tested PFAS in everyday products says you can generally keep using an item until it wears out. Its reasoning: most PFAS are released during manufacturing and waste handling, not from the single product in your kitchen.⁸ It does make exceptions, and paper muffin cups that contain PFAS are one of them.⁸

• Keep PTFE pans off high heat. The Ecology Center advises using PTFE-coated pans cautiously and never on high heat. It says PTFE coatings can release hazardous chemicals when heated, especially above 400–500 °F.¹
• Expect the first bake to be the big one. In a 2024 German lab study of PTFE- and PES-coated bakeware heated to 250 °C (482 °F), some baking trays released PFAS on the first heating, but none of the measured PFAS came off in the second or third.²
• Be gentle. The Ecology Center notes that metal utensils and abrasive cleaning shorten a coated pan’s life.¹

When it’s time to replace a pan, that’s your moment to switch to an uncoated one.

What the coating tests found

The best U.S. look at bakeware is still the Ecology Center’s 2020 study. It bought 10 nonstick baking pans, including several from dollar stores, scraped off the coating and identified it in the lab.¹

None of the six silicone/polyester pans named its coating.

Two newer lab studies add detail. Neither is a U.S. shopping survey.

• Heating test (Germany, 2024). Researchers at TU Dresden heated 18 PTFE- and PES-coated items, including baking trays and baking mats, to 250 °C. Twelve released none of the PFAS they looked for. One baking tray released up to 34 ng/dm² of PFCAs, one baking mat released 3 ng/dm² of PFOA, and five baking trays released fluorinated ether compounds.²
• Coating ID (Sweden, 2024). Swedish researchers analyzed a bake form with an unnamed nonstick coating. It looked like a siloxane-based polyester and contained no PTFE. A PTFE oven form in the same study was about 55% fluorine by weight.³

How we know: methods and limits

• Ecology Center (2020): 10 baking pans and 14 cooking pans from 20 brands and 10 retailers. Coatings were scraped off with a metal tool and identified by FTIR spectroscopy. The lab identified only the coating type; it didn’t test for PFOA, GenX or other PFAS left over from manufacturing.¹ It says research is scarce on whether silicone/polyester coatings leach chemicals of concern during baking, and it found very little published research on BPA-based coatings on pans.¹
• TU Dresden (2024): thermal extraction at 250 °C, three times per sample. Limits of detection were 1–13 ng/dm². No targeted PFAS showed up in the five frying pans tested. Nothing was detected in the second and third extractions, which the authors read as removal with no new formation at that temperature.² This measured what came off the coating, not what reached food. We read the abstract only.²
• Swedish study (2024): total fluorine by combustion ion chromatography, then pyrolysis-GC/MS to identify the polymer. Every cookware coating they tested exceeded 50 ppm total fluorine, including ones with no PTFE found. The authors suggest that low fluorine levels in those may come from cross-contamination on shared production lines or from mica, without confirming either.³ That’s a good reminder that a total fluorine number alone can’t tell you a coating is PTFE.
• Where the pans came from: the Ecology Center’s pans were bought in the U.S.; 22 of its 24 pans were made in South or East Asia.¹ The Swedish samples came from the Swedish market.³ The German abstract doesn’t say where the items were bought.²

Silicone molds and mats

Silicone is a different material from PTFE, and it comes with a different question: siloxanes. When the Danish Consumer Council tested 18 silicone baking molds, 9 got its lowest rating for releasing larger amounts of chemicals or more of the problematic siloxanes.⁴

• Buy food-grade from a store you trust. Swiss food safety officials say the packaging should clearly show the item is suitable for food, in words or a symbol.⁵ Five of the nine poorly rated molds in the Danish test came from online marketplaces.⁴
• Bake it empty first. The Swiss office says to heat a new silicone mold at 200 °C (392 °F) for one hour before first use, then wash it well.⁵ A German study of 14 molds found that using a mold more than once sharply cut siloxane levels in the kitchen air.⁶
• Stay at or below 200 °C. The Swiss office says never to heat silicone above 200 °C, even if the label allows more (some say 280 °C).⁵ Keep molds away from the oven’s heating elements.^4,5
• Retire worn ones. Toss silicone that’s worn, discolored or no longer releases well.⁵

See the evidence: silicone tests

• Danish Consumer Council (2022): molds were filled with 50% ethanol, a stand-in for fatty foods like cake, and held at 100 °C for 8 hours, three times each. Of 18 molds, 5 got the top rating, 4 the middle rating and 9 the lowest. Releases of the siloxanes D4–D8 reached up to 4.8 mg/kg of food, above the 1.5 mg/kg action value that Danish authorities used in 2016. The group also says the release from a single mold isn’t harmful to health on its own; its concern is total exposure from many sources.⁴
• Fromme et al. (2019): 14 silicone and 3 metal molds used to bake cakes in an electric oven. Siloxanes turned up in the indoor air and in the cake, with more at the edges than in the center. Baking with 4 of the molds exceeded a German indoor-air precaution value. The authors advise precleaning new molds and strictly following the maker’s temperature limits.⁶
• Swiss FSVO: siloxane oligomers can pass from silicone into dough during baking, and baking temperature and fat content affect how much. The office says correctly made, legally compliant silicone used properly poses no health risk.⁵

Parchment and paper liners

Paper liners deserve a second look, too. In a 2025 test by consumer groups in nine countries, 14% of the food paper products tested contained 6:2 FTOH, a PFAS the EU is banning from 2026.^7,8 A 2024 Norwegian survey found PFAS in three paper muffin forms, which were among the items with the highest migration into food.⁹

• U.S. status: the FDA says PFAS grease-proofers for paper and paperboard food packaging are no longer sold into the U.S. market, and in January 2025 it declared the 35 related food contact notifications no longer effective.¹⁰
• What that doesn’t cover: the FDA notes that PFAS can still turn up in packaging as an impurity or contaminant, even when they weren’t intentionally used.¹⁰
• Silicone-coated parchment: the Ecology Center notes that parchment paper can release silicone-related chemicals into food.¹

Want to skip liners altogether? Grease an uncoated pan, or bake in glass or ceramic. Your orange-zest muffins will never know the difference.

How we know: the paper tests

• European/Canadian test (2025): consumer groups from nine countries tested 229 products, including baking papers, paper muffin and cupcake liners, popcorn bags and tea bags. Each group picked products marketed as stain-, grease- or water-repellent and skipped items already labeled as containing PFAS (so no Teflon products). The lab screened for total organic fluorine before running targeted tests on anything above 50 mg/kg.^7,8 Eight of the nine groups were European; the ninth was Canadian.⁸ The Danish group says most Danish products met Denmark’s national ban, and the PFAS turned up mainly in paper products from other European countries.⁷
• Norway (2024): the Norwegian Food Safety Authority sampled 30 paper and board items, and DTU’s lab ran extraction and migration tests. PFAS showed up in 11 of them. The authors say levels were lower than in a 2017 survey.⁹

Does the law cover bakeware?

Yes, in at least one state. Minnesota’s definition of cookware explicitly includes baking sheets and baking molds, and the state bans cookware with intentionally added PFAS.¹² Our state PFAS cookware laws guide has every state’s rules and dates. Waffle makers and other electric bakers are covered in our small appliances guide.

What we don’t know

• Today’s U.S. shelves. The only U.S. bakeware coating study we found dates from 2020 and covered 10 baking pans.¹ Coatings may have changed since.
• What reaches your food. None of the bakeware coating studies we read measured migration from a coated metal pan into baked food.^1,2,3
• Silicone/polyester coatings. The Ecology Center says research is scarce on whether they leach chemicals of concern during baking.¹
• U.S. paper liners. The liner tests we found were run mostly on products sold in Europe.^8,9 We found no U.S. test of muffin liners or baking paper after the FDA’s 2024 announcement.
• Brand claims. We didn’t check any brand’s “PFAS-free” bakeware claim for this guide. Ask for the coating name and the test, as above.