From 1979 to 1983 Bustani worked in research and development for HYL then a subsidiary of HYLSA (now TENOVA HYL of Techint Group), a steel company based in Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico in the area of direct reduction of iron ores.
With Bustani and Mikhail Mishaqa, al-Yaziji formed the Syrian Association for the Sciences and Arts – the Arab world's first literary society – in 1847.
A nephew of Butrus al-Bustani, he was famous for translating Homer's Iliad into Arabic, introducing its poetic style into the Arabic language.