3 Uses of Tungsten Essay

Submitted By Django122
Words: 397
Pages: 2

1. 3 Uses of Tungsten
Filaments for electric lamps, electron and television tubes.
X-ray targets
Bullets
Tungsten was discovered in 1783 by José and Fausto Elhuyar. They discovered it when they found an acid in wolframite in 1783 that they succeeded in reducing to the elemental metal with charcoal. The name tungsten comes from the Swedish words “Tung Sten” which means “heavy stone”. Almost half of the tungsten in the world is used in the production of hard materials, mostly tungsten carbide. Tungsten carbide is an inorganic chemical compound that contains equal parts of tungsten and carbon atoms. It is two times stiffer then steel and much denser then steel and titanium. Less than 10% is used in other chemical compounds, while the remaining 40% of Tungsten is used in alloys and steels. Tungsten also has the highest boiling point out of all the elements.

2. Physical Properties: Tungsten is a hard, silver-white metal, or a dull grey powder, and it is hard to melt because of its extremely high melting point. The atomic mass is 183.84 and its density is 19.35 g/cc. The boiling point is about 5928K and the melting point is about 3680K. Tungsten is conductive.

Chemical Properties: Tungsten is a relatively inactive metal. It does not combine with oxygen at room temperatures. It does rust at temperatures that above 400°C. It does not react very readily with acids, but it does dissolve in nitric acid or aqua regia. It is also known to react with materials that also do not react with either of the acids name separately.

3. *Tungsten is used for filaments because of its incredibly high melting point. This high melting point