Carl Daniel Ekman

Carl Daniel Ekman was a Swedish chemical engineer who invented the form of the sulfite process of wood pulp manufacturing which was first established on a firm commercial basis, helping to replace rags as the main raw material of paper with wood pulp. The process was developed at Bergvik, Sweden, from 1871 to 1874, In 1879, he emigrated to England, and opened the Ekman Pulp and Paper Company mill in Northfleet, Kent near the mouth of the Thames River in 1886. He was also a consulting engineer and helped establish mills in Lachendorf, Celle, Germany, Dieppe, France, Rumford, Rhode Island, St. Petersburg, Russia, Corfu and Italy. After contracting malaria in French Guiana and losing a lawsuit on pollution of a Northfleet limestone quarry, he died bankrupt in Gravesend, Kent.