11 Facts About Curt Netto

Curt Adolph Netto was a German metallurgist and educator.

Curt Netto is regarded as a precursor for the industrial utilization of aluminium.

Netto was born in Freiberg, Saxony, where his father, Gustav Adolph Netto was a mining official.

Curt Netto enrolled in the Freiberg University of Mining and Technology in 1864.

Curt Netto left school in 1869, and volunteered for the military, joining the mountain troops corps.

Curt Netto was one of the co-founders of the German Society of Natural History and Ethnology of Asia.

The mines were privatized in 1877, and Curt Netto travelled to Tokyo, where he obtained a job as a lecturer on metallurgy at Tokyo Imperial University in 1878.

Curt Netto took a one-year sabbatical leave from 1882 to 1883 for research in Europe, Mexico and the United States.

However, Curt Netto's process was quickly rendered obsolete by the development of electrolysis smelting.

In 1889, on the recommendation of noted chemist Clemens Winkler, Curt Netto accepted a post as head of the technical department of Metallgesellschaft in Frankfurt am Main.

Curt Netto retired in 1902 for health reasons and from 1906 resided at the spa resort of Bad Nauheim in Hesse.