Carl Georg Munters (22 March 1897 – 1989) was a Swedish inventor, most known for inventing together with Baltzar von Platen the gas absorption refrigerator now sold by

Electrolux Electrolux AB () is a Swedish Multinational corporation, multinational home appliance manufacturer, headquartered in Stockholm. It is consistently ranked the world's second largest appliance maker by units sold, after Whirlpool Corporation, Whi ...

. He also invented and patented a method of making foamed plastic, which was later rediscovered by

Dow Chemical Company The Dow Chemical Company is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Midland, Michigan, United States. The company was among the three largest chemical producers in the world in 2021. It is the operating subsidiary of Dow Inc., ...

and used to make

Styrofoam Styrofoam is a brand of closed-cell extruded polystyrene foam (XPS), manufactured to provide continuous building insulation board used in walls, roofs, and foundations as thermal insulation and as a water barrier. This material is light blue in ...

Personal life

He was born in Dala-Järna, Kopparbergs län,

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

, the son of engineer Anders Johan Munters and Hilma Bernhardina Helling. He graduated from KTH in 1922. Munters married Anna Eugenia Geralf in 1925 and Marianne Warkander in 1951.

Refrigerators

Together with Baltzar von Platen and John Tandberg, Munters invented the gas absorption refrigerator for domestic use. His intention was to create an easy-to-use refrigerator without any moving parts. The technique removed thermal energy, which was driven by a heat source such as propane, electricity, or kerosene. The team rented a room and worked into the night. They slept in the mornings and missed classes at the

Royal Institute of Technology KTH Royal Institute of Technology (), abbreviated KTH, is a public research university in Stockholm, Sweden. KTH conducts research and education in engineering and technology and is Sweden's largest technical university. Since 2018, KTH consist ...

where they were students. It took them about a year to create a first prototype that worked with self-circulation. The prototype still had one moving part, a ball valve, and was big and clumsy. Eventually the design was improved and their cooling solution was a world sensation.

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...

once mentioned how astonished he was by their ingenious solution. Manufacturing of the refrigerator commenced in 1923 by the company AB Arctic. In 1925, development was finished, and the company was bought by Electrolux.

Other inventions

After inventing extruded polystyrene foam plastic in early 1930s and selling his US patent to Dow in 1940s, he started his own company in 1955 and developed, among other things, new insulation materials, air conditioners and dehumidification devices. At his death, Munters had over a thousand patents.

Patents

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References

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External links