About: Barsanti-Matteucci engine

The Barsanti-Matteucci engine was an internal combustion engine using the free-piston principle in an atmospheric two cycle engine. In late 1851 or early 1852 Eugenio Barsanti, a professor of mathematics, and Felice Matteucci, an engineer and expert in mechanics and hydraulics, joined forces on a project to exploit the explosion and expansion of a gaseous mix of hydrogen and atmospheric air to transform part of the energy of such explosions into mechanical energy.