A carburetor (American English) or carburetor is a device that combines air and fuel for an internal combustion engine in the right proportion for combustion. Sometimes it is shortened to carbohydrates in the United Kingdom and North America or carby in Australia. Carburete or carburize (and therefore carburetion or carburetion, respectively) is to mix the air and fuel or equip (a motor) with a carburetor for that purpose. A burette or burette is a device for measuring liquids accurately.
Carburetors have largely been supplanted in the automotive industry and, to a lesser extent, in aviation by fuel injection. They are still common in small engines for lawn mowers, rototillers and other equipment.
The first carburetor was invented by Samuel Morey in 1826. Another carburetor was developed by Enrico Bernardi at the University of Padua in 1882, for his Motrice Pia, the first gasoline combustion engine (one cylinder, 121.6 cc) prototype on August 5 from 1882. A The carburetor was one of the first patents of Karl Benz (1888) when he developed internal combustion engines and their components.
The first carburetors were the type of surface carburetor, in which the air is charged with fuel as it passes over the surface of the gasoline. In 1885, Wilhelm Maybach and Gottlieb Daimler developed a floating carburetor for their engine based on the spray nozzle. The Daimler-Maybach carburetor was copied extensively, resulting in patent claims, but the British courts rejected the Daimler company's priority claim in favor of Edward Butler's 1884 aerosol carburetor used in its gasoline cycle. Hungarian engineers János Csonka and Donát Bánki patented a carburetor for a stationary engine in 1893.