All practice pages/Interatomic theory/Elements
Element 74, a transition metal
The metal with the highest melting point of all, the glowing filament of the classic light bulb, and the heart of the hardest cutting tools.
Period 6, group 6. The other transition metals are tinted, and every cell opens its own article.
Like other transition metals, tungsten loses its outer s electrons, and often some d electrons as well, to form positive ions, and it can form more than one kind.
Mined as wolframite and scheelite, mostly in China, which produces over 80% of the world's supply.
Carl Wilhelm Scheele showed in 1781 that the mineral now called scheelite held a new acid, and in 1783 the Spanish brothers Juan José and Fausto Elhuyar isolated the metal from wolframite. Tungsten is Swedish for heavy stone. The symbol W comes from wolfram, its German name, after the mineral wolframite.
About half becomes tungsten carbide, nearly as hard as diamond, for drill bits, saw teeth, mining tools and the balls of ballpoint pens. Tungsten also makes light bulb filaments, X-ray tube targets, welding electrodes, heavy alloys for counterweights and darts, and radiation shielding.