The Dortmund Data Bank was founded in the 1970s at the University of Dortmund in Germany. The original reason for starting a vapor–liquid phase equilibria data collection was the development of the group contribution method UNIFAC which allows to estimate vapor pressures of mixtures.
The DDB has since been extended to many other properties and has increased dramatically in size also because of intensive (German) government aid. The funding has ended and the further development and maintenance is performed by DDBST GmbH, a company founded by members of the industrial chemistry chair of the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, Germany.
Additional contributors are the DECHEMA, the FIZ CHEMIE (Berlin), the Technical University in Tallinn, and others.