Tungsten (W)

Tungsten melts at 3,422 °C, the highest of any metal and beaten among all elements only by carbon, which is why every incandescent bulb ever made used a tungsten filament. It is also almost exactly as dense as gold — 19.3 against 19.3 — which is the basis of the classic gold bar fraud, a tungsten core with a gold shell, detectable only by ultrasound or by careful conductivity testing. Its symbol W comes from wolfram, the German name, from wolf rahm: medieval tin smelters found the ore "devoured tin like a wolf devours sheep".

Properties

Atomic number

74

Symbol

W

Standard atomic weight

183.84 u

Category

Transition metal

Group

6

Period

6

Block

d-block

Electron configuration

[Xe] 6s² 4f¹⁴ 5d⁴

Electrons per shell

2, 8, 18, 32, 12, 2

Melting point

3,695 K — 3421.8 °C — 6191.3 °F

Boiling point

5,828 K — 5554.9 °C — 10030.7 °F

Density

19.3 g/cm³

Electronegativity

2.36 (Pauling)

Oxidation states

+6, +4

Discovered

1783 by Juan José and Fausto Elhuyar

Electron configuration

Full

1s² 2s² 2p⁶ 3s² 3p⁶ 4s² 3d¹⁰ 4p⁶ 5s² 4d¹⁰ 5p⁶ 6s² 4f¹⁴ 5d⁴

Noble gas shorthand

[Xe] 6s² 4f¹⁴ 5d⁴

Shells

K: 2 · L: 8 · M: 18 · N: 32 · O: 12 · P: 2

What it is used for

• Tungsten carbide cutting tools, drill bits and mining picks
• Incandescent and halogen lamp filaments
• TIG welding electrodes
• Radiation shielding and aircraft ballast weights, replacing lead
• Armour-piercing penetrators and hunting shot

Neighbours in the table

Group 6

Elements in the same group share their outer electron count, which is why they behave similarly in reactions. Tungsten sits in group 6 with chromium, molybdenum, seaborgium.