Achard studied many subjects, including meteorology, evaporation chillness, electricity, telegraphy, gravity, lightning arresters, and published in German and French.

For his discoveries in the acclimatisation of tobacco to Germany, the king granted him a lifetime pension of 500 taler.

This would in turn lead to a reduced need for slaves in sugar-production, and the subsequent abolishment of slavery in much of the world.

In 1801, with the support of King Friedrich Wilhelm III, he opened the first sugar beet refinery at Gut Kunern near Steinau[4] Silesia, Prussia.

Other refineries were soon built by his students Johann Gottlob Nathusius and Moritz, Freiherr von Koppy.

English sugar merchants offered Achard 200,000 taler to declare his experiments a failure but he refused.

Achard described the sugar beet as, "one of the most bountiful gifts which the devine munificence had awarded to man on earth.

Due to Archard's financial difficulties as a result of several fires in 1807, his refineries were declared bankrupt in 1815.