Jean Joseph Étienne Lenoir (January 12, 1822 - August 4, 1900) was a Belgian engineer.
He was born in Mussy-la-Ville (then in Luxembourg, part of Belgium from 1839). By the early 1850s he had emigrated to France, taking up residence in Paris, where he developed an interest in electroplating. His interest in the subject led him to make electrical inventions including an improved electric telegraph.
By 1859, Lenoir's experimentation with electricit...
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Jean Joseph Étienne Lenoir (January 12, 1822 - August 4, 1900) was a Belgian engineer.
He was born in Mussy-la-Ville (then in Luxembourg, part of Belgium from 1839). By the early 1850s he had emigrated to France, taking up residence in Paris, where he developed an interest in electroplating. His interest in the subject led him to make electrical inventions including an improved electric telegraph.
By 1859, Lenoir's experimentation with electricity led him to develop the first internal combustion engine, a single-cylinder two-stroke engine which burnt a mixture of coal gas and air ignited by a "jumping spark" ignition system by Ruhmkorff coil, and which he patented in 1860. The engine differed from more modern two-stroke engines in that the charge was not compressed before ignition (a system invented in 1801 by Lebon D'Humberstein, which was quiet but inefficient), with a power stroke at each end of the cylinder. In 1863 the Hippomobile with a hydrogen gas fuelled one cylinder internal...
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