Of soap and explosives — the sad tale of a forgotten surgeon

This is a story about Nicholas Leblanc’s extreme bad luck. Because of it, you undoubtedly don’t recognise his name, though what he did fuelled the industrial growth of Europe. In 1806, he dropped out of history rather suddenly, a broken man.

His passion was a substance called soda ash, but to understand its importance we have to begin elsewhere – and much earlier. It has to do with how to get clean. 

Most of the bar of soap you rub yourself with is fat and neither this nor water are much good in making you dirt-free. That’s the job of tiny doughnut-shaped clusters of molecules called micelles which form when soda ash mixed in the fat comes into contact with water. They envelope dirt and don’t let go. When you rinse with water they fall off your skin, still holding tight to the grime plus skin cells and oils secreted by your pores.

Here’s how science describes them: The interior of the micelle is composed of hydrophobic tails, creating an environment that can encapsulate nonpolar substances. Their exterior shell is formed by the hydrophilic heads, allowing the micelle to remain stable in the aqueous environment. The hydrophobic core traps oils and grease, while the hydrophilic shell interacts with water to wash the dirt away. They are created when soda ash contacts water.

The ancient Egyptians discovered this and mined an impure form of soda ash at Wadi Natron in the Western Sahara. They called it natron and it became an important ingredient in both soap and the embalming of mummies (Tutankhamun and others were embalmed in natron soap). 

The stuff was difficult to mine, expensive and, given its location, hard to transport. But mining at Wadi Natron and other out-of-the-way places endured for centuries. In the 17th century, there are records of 1,500 camels being used to haul natron from a freshly discovered deposit near the river Hermus in Turkey to soap factories in Smyrna on the Aegean Sea. 

Then the dial shifted. 

In the late 18th century soda ash was found to be useful in glass-making, textile preparation, paper processing and, importantly for the French government, explosives. Its low grade in natural state and slow production suddenly became a national issue and a scramble for other sources began.

Researchers found that dry kelp, when burned, produced soda ash. That was partly why, in early 1775, Britain threatened Spain with war over its attempt to claim a desolate outcrop in the Southern Ocean rich in kelp called the Falkland Islands.

That year the French government announced a massive award to anyone who could come up with a method of making soda ash in a factory. Given that France was ruled by an ancient, stable monarchy unlikely to default, it was a challenge worth investing in. 

A young surgeon named Nicolas Leblanc threw his hat in the ring. 

He was born in 1742, the son of a minor official at an ironworks and when he was nine his father died. He was sent to a family friend in Bourges, a doctor who interested him in medicine.

He pursued medical studies, graduating with a master’s degree in surgery and became a private physician to Philippe Égalité, Duc d’Orléans. He was sure he would be able to easily claim the prize, a considerable sum which would have made him rich. 

His research was thorough and widespread. He ordered soda ash from Wadi Natron, perused books on alchemy, visited soap factories, fiddled with formulas. The first year: nothing. The second year: nothing. It went on this way for 12 years until, in 1787, he finally perfected a way to make artificial soda ash.

Statue de Nicolas Leblanc au Conservatoire national des Arts et Métiers ~ Wiki Commons

Leblanc cylinder furnace. (Image: Wiki Commons)

Nicolas Leblanc memorial coin. (Image: Wiki Commons)