Etienne Lenoir
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Jean Joseph Etienne Lenoir (1822-1900) was born in Mussy-la-Ville, Belgium, in 1822. By the early 1850s he had emigrated to France, taking up residence in Paris. There he became interested in electroplating. His interest in the subject led him to make electrical inventions including an improved telegraph. By 1859, his tinkering with electricity led him to develop the first internal combustion engine, a single-cylinder, two-stroke engine with electric ignition of illumination gas (not gasoline). He patented the engine in 1860.
By 1863, he had built a road machine powered by the engine, but most applications of the Lenoir engine were as a stationary power plant, powering printing presses, water pumps, or machine tools. Other engineers, especially Nikolaus Otto, began making improvements in internal combustion technology which soon rendered the Lenoir design obsolete. Less than 500 Lenoir engines were built.de:Étienne Lenoir es:Jean Joseph Etienne Lenoir fr:Jean-Joseph Étienne Lenoir lb:Étienne Lenoir nl:Etienne Lenoir pl:Etienne Lenoir sv:Étienne Lenoir
