Dupont

DuPont Co. said today it bought Innovalight Inc., a Sunnyvale, Calif., company founded in 2005 that makes silicon inks and other materials designed to improve the efficiency of crystalline silicon solar cells. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. With revenue of more than $1 billion from photovoltaic market last year, DuPont, of Wilmington, said its goal was to reach $2 billion in such sales by 2014. Privately held Innovalight said in May it would receive $3.4 million from the U.S. Department of Energy to accelerate the development and production of the company's products.

Last November DuPont Co. began selling Imprelis, a new, government-licensed weed-killer. Imprelis looks like the kind of green-ish, high-end, proprietary product DuPont chief executive Ellen Kullman needs to build her arsenal of biotech and agricultural chemicals as it rebuilds worldwide sales from its Wilmington headquarters. Less than five ounces an acre, the company told suppliers, kills clover, dandelions, plantains, wild violets and the tough ground plant golf course managers call "creeping Charlie.

DOVER, Del. - A divided state Supreme Court has ruled against the wife of a former DuPont Co. worker in an asbestos exposure case. The court ruled 3-2 on Monday that Patricia Price could not change a claim of nonfeasance against DuPont into a claim of misfeasance. Nonfeasance involves the failure to protect someone with whom you have a special relationship and to whom you owe a duty. Misfeasance involves a general affirmative duty to protect others against harm. The court said Dupont's failures to prevent Bobby Price from taking asbestos fibers home on his clothing or to warn the Prices about asbestos do not support a claim of misfeasance.

A federal body that investigates chemical-plant accidents concluded in a report released Thursday that the January 2010 death of a DuPont Co. worker in West Virginia after exposure to phosgene had been caused by deficiencies in the Wilmington chemical giant's management systems. The veteran worker, Carl Fish, died after a Teflon-lined, braided metal hose ruptured, causing him to be sprayed in the face and chest with the deadly chemical, which was used as a weapon during World War I and is now used to make insecticides, plastics, and other products.

Women's Golf Association CLASS B BETTER-BALL At Chester Valley. Jonie Praplaski, Sara Nelsen, Chester Valley. . . 84 Rebecca Withers, Stephanie McSwain, West Chester. . . 88 Jeanne Allan, Joan Capriotti, DuPont. . . 90 Toni-Marie Barbine, RiverCrest; Lisa Kennedy, Chester Valley. . . 90 Denise Howell, Maureen Pollard, Chester Valley. . . 91 Yoshiko Kendall, Karin Kirkland, DuPont. . . 91 Kathleen Stone, Sandra Hobbs, Wilmington. . . 91 Linda Terry, Sally Newman, Indian Valley.

Sometimes, as F. Scott Fitzgerald observed, the very rich are different from you and me. But when it comes to home improvements, they can be just like us. Our humble houses and gardens are never truly "done," and so it is with the former Alfred I. duPont estate known as Nemours, a pristine mini-Versailles and public garden on 222 acres in Wilmington. Despite the completion in 2008 of a three-year, $39 million restoration of the mansion and gardens, the work goes on - to the tune of $2.5 million a year.

DuPont Co., in a continuing move to expand beyond its traditional base of making industrial chemicals, said Monday it had won control of Danisco A/S after getting 92.2 percent of the Danish food-ingredient maker's shares. DuPont's offer for Danisco was $6.36 billion. The transaction is DuPont chief executive officer Ellen Kullman's first major acquisition since she started in the job two years ago, giving her the world's biggest maker of food additives and the second-biggest industrial-enzymes producer.

DuPont Co. is weighing whether to increase production of a basic industrial product in the United States or in Asia. The Wilmington-based DuPont plans to boost production of titanium dioxide - a basic chemical that whitens paints, plastics, and paper - by 350,000 metric tons, adding nearly 10 percent to the world's capacity. The increase is to meet demand from Asia and Latin America over the next three years. The company will invest a half-billion dollars at its existing industrial complex in Altamira, on Mexico's Gulf Coast, plus millions more to boost production at other U.S. or Asian plants.