Waldemar Jungner

Waldemar Jungner

Waldemar Ernst Jungner (born June 19, 1869 in Vilske-Kleva, Skaraborgs län (today: Västra Götalands län ), Sweden ; † August 30, 1924 in Kneippbaden, Sweden) was a Swedish inventor , engineer and entrepreneur.

Life

Jungner's parents were Jonas Jungner and Josefina Blomberg. In 1869, the year Jungner was born, there was a famine in Sweden due to severe crop failures, which led to health problems for him. Later he also contracted measles and scarlet fever , both with considerable complications. At the age of 11 Jungner began secondary school in Skara , which he graduated in 1889. His father died when he was 13 years old. From 1889 studied chemistry , mathematics , astronomy , botany , geology and Latin at Uppsala University . He later continued his studies at the Royal Technical University in Stockholm . Even during his school days he read books enthusiastically, was particularly fascinated by the famous Swedish physicist and chemist Svante Arrhenius and was determined to become an inventor. Waldemar Jungner was 55 years old and died of pneumonia in 1924 .

plant

As the inventor, Jungner developed the first fire alarm called Pyrofonen , which was based on the different thermal expansion of iron and copper wires. He worked on the electrochemical production of sodium carbonate , on electric hose conveyors and on rock drills, which he patented in various countries. From 1890 Jungner worked on various rechargeable batteries. His idea was to use an electrolyte that, compared to lead batteries , does not change, but is only responsible for conductivity, but does not take part in the chemical reactions on the electrodes. Jungner experimented with various metals. Jungner was the first to develop the rechargeable alkaline silver-cadmium battery . In 1900 there was a test drive in Stockholm with a car with a silver-cadmium battery, in which the vehicle covered almost 150 kilometers on one charge. Due to the high cost of silver and cadmium , Jungner later developed the nickel-cadmium battery and also an alkaline nickel-iron battery , for which he received a patent in 1899.

Just a year after the patent was granted, he founded the Ackumulator Aktiebolaget Jungner company . Due to long-standing patent disputes with Thomas Edison about the invention of the nickel-iron battery, which Edison won due to larger financial resources, the company ran into financial problems that increased when the production building burned down in 1905. Finally, Jungner released his patent for other manufacturers. His company was able to continue under the new name Svenska Ackumulator Aktiebolaget Jungner and today still produces nickel-cadmium batteries as SAFT AB, part of Saft .

Honors

Waldemar Jungner was admitted to the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering in 1922 and was the first to receive the Oscar Carlson Medal from the Swedish Chemical Society in 1924 .

literature

• Sven A Hansson: Waldemar Jungner och jungnerackumulatorn. In: Daedalus. Tekniska Museets Årsbok, 1963, accessed November 28, 2018 (Swedish). 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Waldemar Jungner - Accumulator - Tekniska museet. In: tekniskamuseet.se. March 7, 2018, accessed November 28, 2018 . 
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Allen J. Bard, György Inzelt, Fritz Scholz: Electrochemical Dictionary . Springer Science & Business Media, Heidelberg 2012, ISBN 978-3-642-29550-8 , p. 523 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
3. ↑ Medaljer & utmärkelser. Svenska Kemisamfundet, accessed on September 6, 2019 .