Major breakthroughs: 1920s–1930s [ edit ]
A marker outside DuPont's Belle Plant in Dupont City, West Virginia , where ammonia was first synthesized for commercial use.
DuPont's Orlon plant in Camden, South Carolina, c. 1930–1945
In the 1920s, DuPont continued its emphasis on materials science , hiring Wallace Carothers to work on polymers in 1928. Carothers invented neoprene , a synthetic rubber ; [9] the first polyester super polymer ; and, in 1935, nylon . The invention of Teflon followed a few years later. DuPont introduced phenothiazine as an insecticide in 1935. [10]