Edmond Hustinx > work
Edmond Hustinx was the owner-managing director of a soap factory in Maastricht. In 1931 he had taken over from his father the management of the Zeepfabriek Hustinx NV (housed on the Looiersgracht, later in the Bosscherveld in Maastricht). Soap production went well until the outbreak of the Second World War, after which it became more and more difficult to find the raw materials. One had to suffice with the manufacture of surrogates, but this provided the impetus for the development of modern synthetic detergents.
In 1946 Edmond Hustinx began with the production of water glass and metasilicate (raw material for dish-washing agents) in an continuously rotating oven, an invention that fixed the attention of foreign companies on the soap factory. Edmond Hustinx participated in water glass and metasilicate factories in Germany and France. He granted licenses over the whole world.
In his professional area, he was very creative. He produced many inventions, for which he acquired lucrative patents. Peter Debye, the Nobel Prize winner from Maastricht, stimulated Edmond Hustinx because he made inventions across the borders of professional scientific fields and was inventive in making something still usable from residual materials, so-called co-production.
