Happy 100th birthday to the refrigerator!
It all started as an invention within a master’s thesis at KTH and was the beginning of what later became the Division of Applied Thermodynamics and Refrigeration – today part of the Department of Energy Technology.
It’s hard to imagine modern life without it, but the world’s first refrigerator without moving parts was developed by two KTH Mechanical Engineering students, Baltzar von Platen and Carl Munters.
Since they didn’t have access to a lab, they rented a small room where they worked late into the night – often sleeping in and missing their classes the next morning.
Their innovation caught the attention of Electrolux Group, which bought the rights 1925.
For the first time, ordinary households could store food safely without ice or electricity, a revolutionary step toward the modern kitchen.
The two inventors received about 50 öre (SEK 0.50) in royalties per refrigerator sold, and by the 1960s, more than ten million of their refrigerators had been manufactured.
A century later, Electrolux remains one of the world’s largest home appliance producers – thanks, in part, to a brilliant idea born at KTH.
Elecrolux’s founder Axel Wennergren funded a research position at KTH to continue the development of refrigeration technology. This was the beginning of what later became the Department of Refrigeration – today part of the Department of Energy Technology.
PS. Welcome to the museum at Brinellvägen 68, KTH campus in Stockholm, where you can find several old prototypes and more of the centenary-old history.