Fin Sparre inspected the Fabrikoid artificial-leather factory in Newburgh, New York, in 1910, after DuPont had already signed the purchase contract. He spent two days examining its processes and found inefficient, often dangerous operations. DuPont had committed itself before finding out how the factory worked. Congressional pressure against the "Powder Trust" had pushed DuPont to find uses beyond powder for its nitrocellulose capacity. Nitrocellulose is cellulose, the polymer in plant fibers, chemically modified with nitrate ester groups. Fabrikoid consisted of a nitrocellulose coating on woven cloth. Irénée du Pont, head of DuPont's Development Department, saw an opening for a premium artificial leather that the company's chemical knowledge could help it make. In September 1909, DuPont funded an experimental artificial-leather plant at its closing Oakland site. Within six months, chemists and engineers produced the premium grade Irénée wanted. Their key technique was solvent recovery, a process for collecting solvents for reuse. DuPont then assumed that the Fabrikoid Company's use of solvent recovery meant the artificial-leather maker's entire process was advanced. That assumption lay behind the purchase that brought Sparre to Newburgh. After his inspection, DuPont spent two years repairing the factory and its market reputation. The material still stretched too much diagonally across its woven backing, and its coating wore away at folds and corners. Poor weather resistance threatened its use for automobile tops and upholstery. DuPont also tested shoe uppers, the material above the soles, on about 40 Wilmington mail carriers and sold 150 pairs locally. The shoes looked good and resisted water, but they lacked ventilation, softened, and cracked with repeated bending. DuPont pursued four years of research to improve the material and try to match genuine leather. Researchers made definite improvements, while the company aimed Fabrikoid at automobile tops and upholstery. As the automobile industry grew in the 1910s, Fabrikoid's business grew with it. DuPont put $43 million in 2026 dollars into the company purchase, and the business's return on investment rose from 0.5 percent in 1911 to 20 percent in 1919. It made money, with profits averaging about 15 percent over that period, because chemical knowledge and solvent recovery improved production, sustained research improved the product, and automobile growth expanded demand. But the material's remaining physical defects defeated the shoe application: DuPont never produced satisfactory artificial leather for boots and shoes.

DuPont kept backing a machine to make black powder, an explosive mixture, at its Experimental Station during the financial panic of 1907. Executives believed that a safer, cheaper way to make it justified years of experiments. The work began with Alfred du Pont, who in 1902 requested $110,000 in 2026 dollars for experiments in wet mixing. The black powder combined sulfur, a chemical element, charcoal, a carbon-rich solid, and sodium nitrate, a salt made of sodium and nitrate ions. Wet mixing meant combining those ingredients in a slurry, a mixture of solids and liquid, then drying it. Alfred wanted safer, faster production, but earlier inventors had struggled to keep sodium nitrate from crystallizing on the powder. DuPont expanded his idea into a continuous process, with connected operations intended to lower the cost of each unit of powder. DuPont worked with machinery inventor J. N. Wingett, but development moved slowly from 1903 through 1907. By October of that last year, the Executive Committee had authorized $3.9 million for the project, excluding Wingett's salary. The panic brought instructions to finish the machinery for no more than another $110,000. Yet experiments continued: for the remainder of 1908 and throughout 1909, the committee funded the work at $74,000 per month, excluding the salaries of Wingett and Francis du Pont. Material caked inside the machinery, and the powder itself had low density and performed poorly when fired. Under a microscope, researchers could still see crystals on the grain surfaces. Despite these problems, the process seemed developed enough for DuPont to begin patent work in mid-1909. Attorneys found almost all 200 of Wingett's claims worthless and unpatentable, so DuPont ended his contract. The Station's full-time staff kept working through the first quarter of 1911. Further work nearly eliminated the mechanical faults, but the powder remained unsatisfactory. DuPont narrowed the effort to wet mixing followed by its established batch operations, which handled separate quantities of powder: pressing it, forming grains, smoothing their surfaces by glazing, and drying them. In January 1912, DuPont ordered the continuous-process machinery scrapped, abandoning a venture that had consumed about $6.9 million in development spending, excluding salaries. The venture lost money because the technical defects left it without a commercial advantage; the limited wet-mix approach offered no savings either, and the Station ended that work too. DuPont had hired Wingett before developing the idea in house, Francis du Pont had managed him poorly, and the Station had taken too long to judge the process.