Britannica
Sources used in this answer
Who synthesized nylon 6,6 at DuPont?
Created from Britannica articles
using AI.
AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
man-made fibre
Figure 1: Three common polymer structures. The linear, branched, and network architectures are represented (from top), respectively, by high-density polyethylene (HDPE), low-density polyethylene (LDPE), and phenol formaldehyde (PF). The chemical structure and molecular structure of highlighted regions are also shown.
Nylon 6,6 was developed in the 1930s by a research team at E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company led by the American chemist Wallace H. Carothers.12
As the director of research in organic chemistry at DuPont's laboratory in Wilmington, Delaware, Carothers conducted fundamental investigations into polymerization and the structure of high molecular weight substances, which ultimately led to the successful synthesis of nylon.1