There is emerging evidence that tungsten has toxic health effects. We summarize the recent tungsten toxicity research in this short review. Tungsten is widely used in many commercial and military applications because it has the second highest melting temperature of any element. Consequently, it is important to elucidate the potential health effects of tungsten.

V. Brožek, T. F. Kubatík, Institute of Plasma Physics CAS v.v.i. Prague, Czech Republic M. Vokáč, J. Kolísko, P. Pokorný, Czech Technical University Klokner Institute, Prague. Tungsten fibers have high tensile strength but a poor oxidation resistance at elevated temperatures. Using this first characteristic and to prevent oxidation of tungsten coated composite materials in which the primary req...

Tungsten is a relatively rare metal with numerous applications, most notably in machine tools, catalysts, and superalloys. In 2003, tungsten was nominated for study under the National Toxicology Program, and in 2011, it was nominated for human health assessment under the US Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Integrated Risk Information System. In 2005, the Agency for Toxic Substances and D...

OBJECTIVES To assess the exposure to tungsten, cobalt, and nickel in a plant producing hard metals. The main components of hard metals are tungsten carbide and cobalt metal. According to recent studies, these two components may be responsible for both fibrogenic and carcinogenic effects. METHODS 87 workers were investigated (86 male, one female) with a median age of 42 (range 22-58) and a mea...

Near fully dense tungsten coatings onto molybdenum substrates have been demonstrated using the Supersonic Laser Deposition (SLD) process. This is a characteristic that is not readily achievable with refractory materials. The tensile strength of the tungsten deposited coatings, 724MPa, is comparable to that of wrought tungsten with no evidence of melting or substrate grain growth. The results ha...

We report on a process for fabricating self-aligned tungsten (W) nanowires with polycrystalline silicon core. Tungsten nanowires as thin as 10 nm were formed by utilizing polysilicon sidewall transfer technology followed by selective deposition of tungsten by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) using WF6 as the precursor. With selective CVD, the process is self-limiting whereby the tungsten formati...

In Methanobacterium wolfei two formylmethanofuran dehydrogenases are present, one of which is a molybdenum- and the other a tungsten enzyme. We report here that also the 'molybdenum' enzyme contained tungsten when the archaeon was grown on molybdenum-deprived medium supplemented with tungstate (1 microM). Unexpectedly the tungsten-substituted molybdenum enzyme was catalytically active and displ...

A tungsten-carbon multilayer system deposited by magnetron sputtering was used as a model system to study deuterium diffusion in tungsten, carbon and related carbides. After deposition the as-deposited multilayer films were annealed at different temperatures to achieve different structures. The structural changes due to annealing were investigated by Rutherford backscattering spectrometry and X...

In mechanical tests of tantalum-tungsten alloys with nominal tungsten contents between 0 and 10 wt% for strain rates between 0.000016 and 6800 sr and temperatures between 77 and 400 K, the addition of tungsten noticeably reduces the strain-rate dependence of the flow stress of tantalum near yield. It also subtly alters the strain-rate behavior of the work hardening, making it more like that of ...

Single-crystal tungsten nanobelts with thicknesses from tens to hundreds of nanometers, widths of several micrometers and lengths of tens of micrometers were synthesized using chemical vapor deposition. Surface energy minimization was believed to have played a crucial role in the growth of the synthesized nanobelts enclosed by the low-energy {110} crystal planes of body-centered-cubic structure...