When Bien died in 1759, Leblanc enrolled at the École de Chirurgie (College of Surgeons) in Paris to study medicine.

[2] Unable to provide adequately for his family on the medical fees he obtained from his patients, Leblanc in 1780 accepted a position as the private physician to the household of the Louis Philip II, Duke of Orléans.

In 1775, the French Academy of Sciences offered a prize for a process whereby soda ash could be produced from salt.

The prize was awarded to Nicolas Leblanc for a process which used sea salt and sulfuric acid as the raw materials.

In 1807, Losh, Wilson and Bell opened the first alkali works in England that used the Leblanc process, at Walker, Newcastle upon Tyne.