Barsanti-Matteucci free-piston engine
Motor de pistón libre de Barsanti y Matteucci
- Date
- 1853-1854 · confidence medium
- Place
- Florence, Tuscany, Italy
- Credited to
- Eugenio Barsanti and Felice Matteucci
- Field
- Matter & energy
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A free-piston internal combustion engine fed with lighting gas and ignited by an electric spark, patented in London in 1854. It preceded Lenoir's engine by six years.
Whether the engine worked successfully and whether Lenoir knew of it are both debated; a version was built in Belgium (1860) but the venture failed after Barsanti's death in 1864.
What it led to
- an internal combustion engine produced in small series
- precedent for the Otto and Langen atmospheric engine
- a priority debate with Lenoir