At the time of divestment, DuPont retained the single-base nitrocellulose powders, while Hercules held the double-base powders combining nitrocellulose and nitroglycerine. and now part of Ashland Inc.) and the Atlas Powder Company (purchased by Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) and now part of AkzoNobel). The court ruling resulted in the creation of the Hercules Powder Company (later Hercules Inc. The courts declared that the company's dominance of the explosives business constituted a monopoly and ordered divestment. The company subsequently purchased several smaller chemical companies in 1912 these actions generated government scrutiny under the Sherman Antitrust Act. Charles Lee Reese was appointed as director and the company began centralizing their research departments. In 1902, DuPont's president, Eugene du Pont, died, and the surviving partners sold the company to three great-grandsons of the original founder. The Eleutherian Mills site is now a museum and a National Historic Landmark.ĭuPont continued to expand, moving into the production of dynamite and smokeless powder. The company grew quickly, and by the mid-19th century had become the largest supplier of gunpowder to the United States military, supplying one-third to one-half the powder used by the Union Army during the American Civil War. The company began as a manufacturer of gunpowder, as du Pont noticed that the industry in North America was lagging behind Europe. He started the company at the Eleutherian Mills, on the Brandywine Creek, near Wilmington, Delaware, two years after du Pont and his family left France to escape the French Revolution and religious persecution against Huguenot Protestants. Working powder mills on Brandywine Creek, about 1905 Establishment: 1802 ĭuPont was founded in 1802 by Éleuthère Irénée du Pont, using capital raised in France and gunpowder machinery imported from France. On August 31, 2017, it merged with the Dow Chemical Company to create DowDuPont. In 2014, DuPont was the world's fourth-largest chemical company based on market capitalization and eighth-largest based on revenue. It also developed synthetic pigments and paints including ChromaFlair. DuPont developed Freon ( chlorofluorocarbons) for the refrigerant industry, and later other refrigerants. In the 20th century, DuPont developed many polymers such as Vespel, neoprene, nylon, Corian, Teflon, Mylar, Kapton, Kevlar, Zemdrain, M5 fiber, Nomex, Tyvek, Sorona, Corfam and Lycra.
du Pont de Nemours and Company, commonly referred to as DuPont ( / d uː ˈ p ɒ n t/) also ( / dj uː-/), was an American company that was founded in July 1802 in Wilmington, Delaware, as a gunpowder mill by French-American chemist and industrialist Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours.