Tungsten
transition metalProperties
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Atomic Mass | 183.84 amu |
| Category | transition metal |
| Group | 6 |
| Period | 6 |
| Electron Configuration | [Xe] 4f14 5d4 6s2 |
| Electronegativity | 2.36 (Pauling) |
| Oxidation States | 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 |
| Melting Point | 3695 K (3421.8 °C) |
| Boiling Point | 5828 K (5554.9 °C) |
| Density | 19.25 g/cm³ |
| Discovered By | Juan Jose Elhuyar, Fausto Elhuyar (1783) |
About Tungsten
Tungsten holds the highest melting point of any metal at 3,695 K — a number that comes up constantly in materials science because nothing else stays solid that long under heat. The symbol W traces back to wolfram, the German miners' name for the mineral that 'ate' tin during smelting (wolf rahm, wolf's froth). That same refractory character is what kept incandescent filaments glowing for a century: a thin tungsten wire heated past 2,500 °C inside an inert-gas bulb without sublimating fast enough to fail. Modern tungsten chemistry is dominated by the +6 state — WO₃ and the tungstates — and by tungsten carbide (WC), which is sintered with cobalt to make the cutting inserts on lathes and end mills. The metal is reduced industrially from scheelite or wolframite by hydrogen reduction of WO₃ at around 800 °C, since carbothermic reduction would just make the carbide.
Fun Fact
Tungsten and gold are nearly identical in density (19.25 vs. 19.32 g/cm³), which is why gold-bar fraud cases occasionally turn up tungsten cores plated with a thin gold shell.
Common Uses
- Tungsten carbide cutting inserts and drill bits sintered with cobalt binder
- TIG welding electrodes (thoriated or lanthanated tungsten)
- X-ray tube anodes and rotating-anode targets in medical imaging
- Filaments in halogen lamps and electron-microscope sources
- Counterweights and radiation shielding where lead density is insufficient
- Heating elements in vacuum furnaces operating above 2000 °C