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."
Read more about this topic: Norbert Rillieux
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“In the two centuries that have passed since 1776, millions upon millions of Americans have worked and taken up arms, when necessary, to make [the American] dream a reality. We can be proud of what they have accomplished. Today, we are the world’s oldest republic. We are at peace. Our nation and our way of life endure. And we are free.”
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)
“Beyond the horizon, or even the knowledge, of the cities along the coast, a great, creative impulse is at work—the only thing, after all, that gives this continent meaning and a guarantee of the future. Every Australian ought to climb up here, once in a way, and glimpse the various, manifold life of which he is a part.”
—Vance Palmer (1885–1959)