page_title: Pyréolophore
hierarchical_section_title: Pyréolophore
caption_attribution_description: English: Diagram of the first internal combustion engine,the Pyreolophore, of 1806 which was powered by a mixture of coal dust and lycopodium powder.
context_page_description: The Pyréolophore was one of the world's first internal combustion engines. It was invented in the early 19th century in Chalon-sur-Saône, France, by the Niépce brothers: Nicéphore and Claude. In 1807 the brothers ran a prototype internal combustion engine, and on 20 July 1807 a patent was granted by Napoleon Bonaparte after it had successfully powered a boat upstream on the river Saône.
  The Pyréolophore ran on what were believed to be "controlled dust explosions" of various experimental fuels. The fuels included mixtures of Lycopodium powder, finely crushed coal dust, and resin.
  Operating independently, in 1807 the Swiss engineer François Isaac de Rivaz built the de Rivaz engine, a hydrogen-powered internal combustion engine. These practical engineering projects may have followed the 1680 theoretical design of an internal combustion engine by the Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens.
context_section_description: The Pyréolophore (French: [pi.ʁe.ɔ.lɔ.fɔʁ]) was one of the world's first internal combustion engines. It was invented in the early 19th century in Chalon-sur-Saône, France, by the Niépce brothers: Nicéphore (who went on to invent photography) and Claude.  In 1807 the brothers ran a prototype internal combustion engine, and on 20 July 1807 a patent was granted by Napoleon Bonaparte after it had successfully powered a boat upstream on the river Saône.
  The Pyréolophore ran on what were believed to be "controlled dust explosions" of various experimental fuels. The fuels included mixtures of Lycopodium powder (the spores of Lycopodium, or clubmoss), finely crushed coal dust, and resin.
  Operating independently, in 1807 the Swiss engineer François Isaac de Rivaz built the de Rivaz engine, a hydrogen-powered internal combustion engine. These practical engineering projects may have followed the 1680 theoretical design of an internal combustion engine by the Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens. The separate, virtually contemporaneous implementations of this design in different modes of transport means that the de Rivaz engine may be correctly described as the first use of an internal combustion engine in an automobile (1808), whilst the Pyréolophore was the first use of an internal combustion engine in a boat (1807).
caption: 1806 diagram of the Pyréolophore, of 1806 drawn by the Niépce brothers
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