1. Norbert Rillieux was a Louisiana Creole inventor who was widely considered one of the earliest chemical engineers and noted for his pioneering invention of the multiple-effect evaporator.
18 Facts About Norbert Rillieux
1. 2.
Norbert Rillieux was born into a prominent Creole family in New Orleans, Louisiana.
3.
Norbert Rillieux was the son of Vincent Rillieux, a white plantation owner and inventor, and his placee, Constance Vivant, a free person of color.
4.
Norbert Rillieux's siblings were: Barthelemy, Edmond, Marie Eugenie, Louis, Marie Eloise, and Cecile Virginie.
5.
Norbert Rillieux became an expert in steam engines and published several papers about the use of steam to work devices.
6.
At 24, Norbert Rillieux became the youngest teacher at Ecole Centrale, instructing in applied mechanics.
7.
Norbert Rillieux accepted the offer and returned to Louisiana to take up his new position.
8.
In spite of the failure of the collaboration, Norbert Rillieux remained focused on improving the sugar refining process, developing his machine between 1834 and 1843, when he patented it.
9.
One of the great early innovations in chemical engineering, Norbert Rillieux's invention is widely recognized as the best method for lowering the temperature of all industrial evaporation and for saving large quantities of fuel.
10.
Several years after patenting the system, Norbert Rillieux successfully installed it at Theodore Packwood's Myrtle Grove plantation.
11.
Benjamin and Norbert Rillieux became quite good friends, possibly due to their similar social situation; they were both considered outsiders in Louisiana's very class-conscious society.
12.
Norbert Rillieux used his engineering skills to deal with a yellow fever outbreak in New Orleans in the 1850s.
13.
Norbert Rillieux presented a plan to the city that would eliminate the moist breeding grounds for the mosquitoes that carried the disease by addressing problems in the city's sewer system and drying swamplands in the area.
14.
Norbert Rillieux returned to France in the late 1850s, a few years before the start of the American Civil War.
15.
In Paris, Norbert Rillieux became interested in Egyptology and hieroglyphics, which he studied with the family of Jean-Francois Champollion.
16.
Norbert Rillieux spent the next decade working at the Bibliotheque Nationale.
17.
In 1881, at the age of 75, Norbert Rillieux made one last foray into sugar evaporation when he adapted his multiple effect evaporation system to extract sugar from sugar beets.
18.
Norbert Rillieux's process fixed the errors in the previous process, but Norbert Rillieux lost the rights to the patent he had filed.