Dr. Walther Grot Documentary
In this opening episode, Dr. Stephen Grot — president of Ion Power and son of Dr. Walther Grot — introduces a documentary six years in the making. Standing in Ion Power’s original headquarters in New Castle, Delaware, he sets the stage for the life story of the man many in the industry knew as the father of Nafion.
Dr. Walther Grot passed away on March 11, 2026. About six years earlier, Stephen and his son Wilhelm sat down with Walther to record a series of conversations, preserving his story in his own words. The result is a sixteen-part series tracing Walther’s nearly forty-year career at DuPont — the invention of a groundbreaking new material, the patent fights and marketing work that carried it from the lab to the market, and its eventual role transforming the chlor-alkali industry, the process behind everyday chemicals like chlorine and caustic soda.
More than a company history, the series is a portrait of scientific curiosity. It starts with a spark most people would overlook: a chemistry set handed to a ten-year-old boy in 1930s Berlin. Stephen hopes the episodes resonate with anyone working in a STEM field — a reminder of how far a single early interest can carry a person over a lifetime.
He closes the introduction with a story that, for him, captured everything his father had achieved. In the early 2000s, Stephen and his wife Wendy had just launched their own business and were working the trade-show circuit, where Walther introduced them to customers and colleagues across the chemical world. One of the most memorable was a Japanese business consultant they knew as Kato-san. Running into him and his entourage in a parking lot one afternoon, Stephen watched the group grow restless with the small talk — until Kato-san turned and said something to them in Japanese. Jaws dropped. Cameras came out. Suddenly everyone wanted a photo with Walther. That was the moment it clicked for Stephen: his dad was a STEM rock star, someone whose work had genuinely helped an entire industry on the other side of the world. He saves the full story for a later episode.
Over the sixteen episodes that follow, Walther tells his own story — so we’ll let the video do the talking. Press play above to begin. You can also read Ion Power’s tribute to Dr. Grot here.