[2] After finishing Latin school in his hometown at the age of 15, he went to the University of Leuven (French: Louvain), where he studied theology and philosophy at the Collegium Falconis.

[1][3] In the early 1780s the question of aerostats and Montgolfier balloons was occupying the mind of scientists, and Louis Engelbert, 6th Duke of Arenberg, a promoter of science and art, engaged Minckelers, Thysbaert en Carolus van Bochaute, a third natural philosopher at the university, to address the question of the best gas for balloon purposes.

As an appendix to this memoir there was a Table de gravités spécifiques des différentes espèces d'air by Thysbaert.

In his memoir Minckelers relates how he made his discovery: from the very beginning of his experiments he had had the idea of enclosing oil in the barrel of a gun and heating it in a forge.

While not at a center of higher learning, he proceeded to do research, among others on meteorology and on a Mosasaurus skeleton discovered in a local limestone quarry in 1800.

[1] On Maastricht's market square stands a statue, created by Bart van Hove, that carries an "eternal" gas light.