Discovery of tungsten

Tungsten was first isolated in 1783 by the brothers Juan Jose and Fausto Elhuyar, Spanish chemists working at the Royal Basque Society in Bergara. They obtained the metal from the mineral wolframite, following the work of Carl Wilhelm Scheele, who had earlier found an acid containing the new element in a mineral now called scheelite. The word tungsten comes from the Swedish for heavy stone, while its chemical symbol W comes from wolfram, the German name used by miners. Tungsten has the highest melting point of all metals, which made it ideal for filaments in incandescent light bulbs from the early twentieth century. Its compound tungsten carbide is extremely hard and is used for cutting tools, drill bits and armour-piercing ammunition.

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