Ernest Solvay

Who was Ernest Solvay?

Ernest Gaston Joseph Solvay was a Belgian chemist, industrialist and philanthropist.

Born at Rebecq, he was prevented by acute pleurisy from going to university. He worked in his uncle's chemical factory from the age of 21.

In 1861, he developed the ammonia-soda process for the manufacturing of soda ash from brine and limestone. The process was an improvement over the earlier Leblanc process.

He founded the company Solvay & Cie and established his first factory at Couillet in 1863 and further perfected the process until 1872, when he patented it. Soon, Solvay process plants were established in the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany and Austria. Today, about 70 Solvay process plants are still operational worldwide.

The exploitation of his patents brought Solvay considerable wealth, which he used for philanthropic purposes, including the establishment in 1894 of the "Institut des Sciences Sociales" or Institute for Sociology at the Free University of Brussels, as well as International Institutes for Physics and Chemistry. In 1903, he founded the Solvay Business School which is also part of the Free University of Brussels.