From the Greek word for a smell, osme . Osmium and iridium were discovered at the same time by the English chemist Smithson Tennant in 1803. Today, osmium is primarily recovered during the processing of platinum and nickel ores.
Metallic osmium is hard, brittle and very difficult to make.
Unfortunately, osmium tetroxide smells bad and is very poisonous. Because of these problems, osmium is primarily used to make very hard alloys. Osmium alloys can be found in ball point pen tips, fountain pen tips, record needles, electrical contacts and other devices where frictional wear must be minimized. This page is maintained by Steve Gagnon .