Norbert Rillieux - Later Life

Later Life

Norbert Rillieux returned to France in the late 1850s, a few years before the start of the American Civil War. In Paris, Rillieux became interested in Egyptology and hieroglyphics, which he studied with the family of Jean-François Champollion. He spent the next decade working at the Bibliothèque Nationale.

In 1881, at the age of 75, Rillieux made one last foray into sugar evaporation when he adapted his multiple effect evaporation system to extract sugar from sugar beets. The process for which he filed patent was far more fuel-efficient than that currently in use in the beet sugar factories in France. Prior to Rillieux's invention, two engineers developed a vacuum pan and electric coils to improve the process of making sugar, but this was unsuccessful due to the use of steam at wrong locations in the machine. Rillieux's process fixed the errors in the previous process, but Rillieux lost the rights to the patent he had filed.

Norbert Rillieux died on October 8, 1894 at the age of 88. He is buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. His wife, Emily Cuckow, died in 1912 and is buried beside him.

In his honor, a bronze memorial was erected in the Louisana State Museum with the inscription: "To honor Norbert Rillieux, born at New Orleans, Louisiana, March 18, 1806 and died at Paris, France, October 8, 1894. Inventor of Multiple Evaporation and Its Application to the Sugar Industry."