Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (1743-1794) was a French chemist and physicist. He is regarded as the founder of modern chemistry. Lavoisier applied his scientific principles in an effort to develop a better gunpowder, among many other achievements.

He was also an important French government official, active in the Régie des poudres and Ferme générale, who also served as treasurer of the Académie des sciences. He was an associate of Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours (1739-1817), a French political economist, writer, publisher, and public administrator. Lavoisier provided du Pont with a substantial financial loan for du Pont's printing business and funded a patriotic newspaper.

Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours second son, Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours (1771–1834) was accepted as a student in the Regis des Poudres, a government agency for the manufacture of gunpowder which was directed by Lavoisier. Eleuthère Irénée du Pont and his family immigrated to the United States in 1800 and established the first Du Pont powder works on the banks of the Brandywine River in Delaware in 1802.

Lavoisier was a critic of the old regime in France, but as a tax farmer was marked for punishment by the revolutionaries. He was arrested on December 24, 1793, and executed on May 8, 1794.