TUNGSTEN

((W), ) also called Wolfram, chemical element, an exceptionally strong refractory metal of Group VIb of the periodic table, used in steels to increase hardness and strength and in lamp filaments. Tungsten metal was first isolated (1783) by the Spanish chemists and mineralogists Juan Jos and Fausto Elhuyar by charcoal reduction of the oxide (WO3) derived from the mineral wolframite. Earlier (1781) the Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele had discovered tungstic acid in a mineral now known as scheelite, and his countryman Torbern Bergman had concluded that a new metal could be prepared from the acid. The names tungsten and wolfram have been used for the metal since its discovery, though everywhere Jn Jacob Berzelius' symbol W prevails. In British and American usage tungsten is preferred; in Germany and a number of other European countries wolfram is accepted.