page_title: Tungsten
section_title: Applications
hierarchical_section_title: Tungsten / Applications
caption_attribution_description: Closeup of a w:Tungsten filament inside a w:Halogen lamp
context_page_description: Tungsten, or wolfram, is a chemical element with the symbol W and atomic number 74. The name tungsten comes from the former Swedish name for the tungstate mineral scheelite, tungsten which means "heavy stone". Tungsten is a rare metal found naturally on Earth almost exclusively combined with other elements in chemical compounds rather than alone. It was identified as a new element in 1781 and first isolated as a metal in 1783. Its important ores include wolframite and scheelite.
  The free element is remarkable for its robustness, especially the fact that it has the highest melting point of all the elements discovered, melting at 3,422 °C. It also has the highest boiling point, at 5,930 °C. Its density is 19.25 times that of water, comparable with that of uranium and gold, and much higher than that of lead. Polycrystalline tungsten is an intrinsically brittle and hard material, making it difficult to work. However, pure single-crystalline tungsten is more ductile and can be cut with a hard-steel hacksaw.
context_section_description: Approximately half of the tungsten is consumed for the production of hard materials – namely tungsten carbide – with the remaining major use being in alloys and steels. Less than 10% is used in other chemical compounds. Because of the high ductile-brittle transition temperature of tungsten, its products are conventionally manufactured through powder metallurgy, spark plasma sintering, chemical vapor deposition, hot isostatic pressing, and thermoplastic routes. A more flexible manufacturing alternative is selective laser melting, which is a form of 3D printing and allows creating complex three-dimensional shapes.
caption: Close-up of a tungsten filament inside a halogen lamp
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