Combustion chamber,carbon; after Lavoisier

Following the French chemist Antoine Lavoisier, the first director of Teylers Museum, Martinus van Marum, made various instruments between 1790 and 1794 in order to be able to study and demonstrate the theories of the Frenchman in Haarlem too. Lavoisier showed that combustion is a process in which a substance reacts with oxygen. He also assumed that the total mass of all substances involved in combustion stayed the same. To support his hypothesis, Lavoisier studied various combustion products and discovered formerly unknown elements (simple substances). With this instrument, it could be shown that the combustion product of charcoal and oxygen was carbon dioxide and that this gas has the same mass as the combusted charcoal and oxygen. This instrument is an improved version by Van Marum. When igniting the charcoal, far less combustion gases are lost than in the original design of Lavoisier.