Norbert Rillieux was born on March 17, 1806 in New Orleans, Louisiana to parents Vincent Rillieux, a white cotton merchant, and Constance Vivant, a free African American. At this time in America, relationships such as theirs could not be legally recognized. Norbert’s own legal status as a free man did not protect him from the racial discrimination of others, which curtailed many of his endeavors.

Norbert’s father, an engineer who had invented a steam-run, cotton-bailing press, encouraged his son to study mathematics and sciences and sent him to Paris in the 1820’s to attend the L’École Centrale. Here Norbert Rillieux studied physics, mechanics, and other sciences, as well as learning more about the sugar-making process. Because of his impressive academic record, he was asked to teach applied mechanics at the L’École Centrale. He became interested in latent heat (heat of vaporization of liquids) and wrote several papers about steam engines and power. Using this knowledge, as well as his understanding of the sugar-making process, Rillieux worked on ways to improve the process, making sugar production more efficient and economical. About 1830, while still in Paris, he began to develop his ideas for a multiple-effect evaporator under vacuum. There was apparently little interest in Paris. Even though sugar manufacture in Louisiana was technologically far behind that in Europe, it survived because of high U.S. tariffs on foreign sugar.

At the request of Edmund Forstall, Rillieux returned to New Orleans in 1833 to become the chief engineer of a sugar refinery being built there, although the position never materialized because Forstall had a disagreement with Rillieux’s father and Norbert cut off all contact. During the next ten years, Rillieux spent much of his time developing his evaporator, trying out prototypes (all of which failed), making money in land speculation, and losing it in a bank failure. It was also at this time that Rillieux became a close personal friend of Judah P. Benjamin, prominent senator and millionaire.

In 1843, Benjamin and his partner Theodore Packwood backed Rillieux and allowed him to use the sugarhouse on their plantation to test his multiple-effect evaporator. It was a resounding success—the sugar produced was of a very high quality and the profits paid for the machinery costs after only one year of operation. Rillieux’s evaporator used the heat of vaporization from the steam from the first evaporator (as it condensed) to heat the more concentrated sugar solution in the second evaporator. The heat required for the second evaporator was less than for the first because the boiling temperature of the sugar solution was lower in the second than in the first (boiling point is directly proportional to pressure). The economy of the entire operation was improved by using dried sugar cane stalks to fuel the boilers. In his patent application Rillieux very elegantly explained not only the process, but also the science upon which it is based.

Even though Rillieux’s process required less labor, was more efficient, and used sugar cane stalks as fuel (rather than precious timber), he installed less than twenty of his evaporators in the United States before returning to Paris at the beginning of the U.S. Civil War. Ultimately, his multiple-effect evaporator under vacuum became immensely popular in Europe and, after the Civil War, in America.

In his later years, Rillieux studied Egyptology and translated hieroglyphics. At the age of 75 he patented another process for producing sugar, this time from sugar beets, the common source of sugar in Europe. That process reduced the cost of sugar production by half, although he was denied recognition for this achievement during his lifetime. Norbert Rillieux married a Frenchwoman, Emily Cuckow, and lived in France until his death on October 8, 1894 in Paris.

In 1934, the International Sugar Cane Technologists established a memorial to Norbert Rillieux, citing his contributions as a remarkable engineer. Another honor, bestowed by the American Chemical Society, designates the invention of the multiple-effect evaporator by Norbert Rillieux a National Historic Chemical Landmark. His scientific legacy continues, with multi-stage evaporators now used in seawater desalinization plants and recycling processes in the International Space Station.

1. Raber, L. Chemical and Engineering News, 2002, 80(19), 47.
2. Additional Biographical Material about Norbert Rillieux: Sugar Chemist and Inventor
3. Engines of Our Ingenuity: Number 236: Norbert Rillieux

1. Biographical Dictionary of the History of Technology; Day, Lance; McNeil, Ian, Eds.; Routledge: London, 1966; pp 604–605.
2. Heitman, John Alfred. The Modernization of the Louisiana Sugar Industry, 1830–1910; Louisiana State University Press: Baton Rouge, LA, 1987; pp 16, 17, 24, 39.
3. James, Portia P. The Real McCoy: African-American Invention and Innovation, 1619–1930; Smithsonian Institution: Washington, DC, 1989; pp 41–43.
4. McGrayne, Sharon Bertsch. Prometheans In The Lab: Chemistry and the Making of the Modern World; McGraw-Hill: New York, 2001; pp 30–42.
5. Improvement in Sugar-Works. Rillieux, Norbert. U.S. Patent 3237. August 26, 1843.
6. Sitterson, J. Carlyle. Sugar Country: The Cane Sugar Industry in the South, 1753–1950; University of Kentucky Press: Lexington, KY, 1953; pp 147–150.