Norbert Rillieux -- USA
Norbert Rillieux, an African American inventor and 
engineer, is most noted for his invention of the multiple-effect evaporator, an energy-efficient means of evaporating water. This invention was an important development in the growth of the sugar industry, Norbert Rillieux was born into a prominent Creole family in New Orleans, Louisiana. He was the son of Vincent Rillieux, a white plantation owner, involved in the cotton industry, and Constance Vivant, a free person of colour.
As a Creole, Norbert Rillieux had access to education and privileges, he received his early education at private Catholic schools in Louisiana before travelling Paris France, in the early 1820s to attend the Parisian school, École Centrale. He studied physics, mechanics, and engineering and became an expert in steam engines. At 24, Rillieux became the youngest teacher at École Centrale, instructing in applied mechanics. He was a competent blacksmith, fluent in French,and an expert machinist.
In the 1800s, the process for Sugarcane refinement was slow, expensive, and inefficient, some of the sugar was lost at each process stage. It was difficult and dangerous to monitor or maintain correct heat levels for the pots, as a result a lot of the sugar was burned. While in France, Norbert Rillieux researched ways to improve the refining process. In the 1830s,when the steam-operated single pan vacuum was introduced to France, Norbert decided to improve on its efficiency by including a second and later a third pan, with each receiving heat from the previous stage. Norbert was hired by Theodore Packwood to improve his Myrtle Grove Plantation refinery, were he installed his triple evaporation pan system that he patented in 1843. It was an enormous success and revolutionised the sugar refining industry improving efficiency, quality and safety.
During the 1850s Rillieux turned his engineering skills to dealing with a Yellow Fever outbreak carried by mosquitos. Rillieux presented a plan to the New Orleans 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. Edmund Forstall, now a state legislator who had a disagreement with Norbert’s father some years before, blocked the plan. Frustrated by the local politics and southern racism, Rillieux left New Orleans and returned to France in the late 1850s. Some years later as Yellow Fever continued to devastate New Orleans, the state legislature implemented an almost identical plan introduced by white engineers.
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 looked at sugar beets refining, he adapted his multiple effect evaporation system to extract sugar from sugar beets. His patent was far more fuel-efficient than those used in the beet sugar factories of France. Prior to Rillieux's, 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. Norbert’s process fixed the flaws in the process, but he lost the rights to the patent.
Rillieux spent much of his time creating new inventions and defending his patents, he married Emily Cuckow, and he was a cousin of the painter Edgar Degas. Norbert Rillieux died on October 8, 1894 and left behind a legacy of having revolutionised the sugar industry.