Discovery Information
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Who: Fausto and Juan Jose de Elhuyar |
When: 1783 |
Where: Spain |
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Name Origin
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Swedish: tungs ten (heavy stone): W symbol from its German name wolfram. |
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Sources
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Occurs in the minerals scheelite (CaWO4), wolframite [(Fe,Mn)WO4], ferberite and huebnerite. China produces about 70% of the world's supply, but important deposits lie in Bolivia, California,
Colorado, Portugal, Russia as well as South Korea.
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Uses
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Tungsten is a metal with a wide range of uses, the largest of which is as tungsten carbide (W2C, WC), which is one the hardest substances in existence. Cemented carbides (also called hardmetals) are wear-resistant materials
used by the metalworking, mining, petroleum and construction industries. Tungsten is widely used in light bulb and vacuum
tube filaments, as well as electrodes, because it can be drawn into very thin metal wires that have a high melting point.
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When alloyed in small quantities with steel, it greatly increases its hardness. Used widely in the electronics industry. Made
into filaments for vacuum tubes and electric lights. Also used in contact points in cars, heat sinks, weights, counterweights,
welding electrodes, rocket nozzles and cutting tools. Combined with calcium or magnesium it makes phosphors.
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Composites are used as a substitute for lead in bullets and shot.
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Recently, Tungsten Carbide has been used in the fashioning of jewellery due to its hypoallergenic nature and the fact that
due to its extreme hardness it is not apt to lose its luster like other polished metals.
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Notes
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Some sources give the German chemist Karl Wilhelm Scheele as the first to isolate the metal, three years before the d'Elhuyar brothers, in 1780.
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The light bulb manufacturer OSRAM (founded in 1906 when three German companies; Auer-Gesellerschaft, AEG and Siemens and Halske
combined their lamp production facilities), derived its name from the elements of OSmium and wolfRAM - OSRAM.
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