4. Nicolas Leblanc
Nicolas Leblanc was a French chemist, who developed the method for producing sodium carbonate from sodium chloride (common salt). The French Academy of Science offered a prize in 1775 to scientists who could find the process, Nicola Leblanc won the prize and he built a factory that can produce up to 320 tons of soda ash each year. Unfortunately, his plant was confiscated during the French Revolution and the revolutionary government refused to give him the prize money. Napoleon returned the plant in 1802, but Leblanc couldn’t afford to run it and there’s little demand for soda ash during the war. He shot himself to the head four years later.
