death_place death_date birth_place nationality name birth_date gender activity image article_title surname occupation
torino 15 december 1908 piossasco italian alessandro 24 may 1847 m founder alessandro_cruto . png alessandro cruto
 cruto inventor , company founder
alessandro cruto

alessandro cruto was an italian inventor , born in the village of piossasco , who improved on thomas edisons incandescent light bulb .
son of a construction foreman , he attended the school of architecture at the university of turin , while also attending physics and chemistry lectures with the dream of crystallizing carbon to obtain diamonds .
in 1872 he opened a small workshop in his home village where he conducted tests on the production of pure carbon from ethylene .
his efforts were rewarded in 1874 when his experiments succeeded in producing thin sheets of graphite , albeit his initial purpose was that of producing diamonds .
after attending some conferences held by galileo ferraris on electric technology - as well as thomas edison experiments to find a good filament for incandescent lights - he discovered that a carbon filament treated with ethylene under high pressure and temperature acquired a positive resistance coefficient -lrb- its resistance depends on temperature , when temperature increases , it increase its resistance -rrb- .
cruto 's filament is produced by deposition of graphite on thin platinum filaments in the presence of gaseous hydrocarbons .
sublimating this platinum at high temperatures leaves behind thin filaments of super-pure graphite .
he thought that his discovery could be used in incandescent lights instead of carbonized bamboo filament .
helped by naccari , he experimented with his invention in 1880 in the physics laboratory of the university of turin .
in 1882 , he attended the electricity expo at munich , where he gained fame with his technologically new light globe whose efficiency was better than that of edison 's light bulb , also because it produced a white light instead of the yellowish light of edison 's globe .
his success was repeated at the international turin expo of 1884 to the extent that he sold his project in france , switzerland , cuba and usa .
after these successes and because his manufacturing facilities in piossasco were inadequate , he decided to move his activities to a more suitable location .
such a location was identified in alpignano where in 1885-1886 he founded a light globe factory that he managed until 1889 and that eventually grew to a productivity level of 1000 light bulbs a day .
eventually , due to strong disagreements with the factory new management , he resigned in order to pursue his favorite activity as an inventor .
his old factory was sold a number of times , went bankrupt and was eventually acquired by philips in 1927 .
cruto married late in life and spent the rest of his life between his family and his old laboratory .
he continued his experiments on the accumulation of atmospheric energy and the invention of a toy called `` mosca elettrica '' -lrb- electrical fly -rrb- .
cruto died , almost forgotten by all , in 1908 .
