E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company is a chemical company more commonly referred to as the DuPont Company. The company was established in 1802 by Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours (1739-1817) and his son Éleuthère Irénée du Pont (1771-1834). The company began with the production of gunpowder.

In 1903, the DuPont Company's Executive Committee established the Experimental Station, a research facility located on the banks of the Brandywine River, across from DuPont's first black powder works. Initially, the Experimental Station was to be a small laboratory to screen inventions that were coming into the company from outside independent inventors, but soon its mission was altered and it became a large industrial research facility focused on innovative advancements in chemistry.

The DuPont Company's Central Research and Development Department was created in 1975 from elements of the Development Department and the Central Research Department. The Development Department was formed in 1903, and has operated as the company's research arm at the Experimental Station in Wilmington, Delaware. The Central Research Department was formed in 1911 as the Chemical Department and was renamed in 1958.