the.com/osmium
The densest natural element, heavy enough to make lead feel like a coward.
means Osmium is a hard, brittle, bluish-white metal in the platinum group, the densest naturally occurring element, used in tiny amounts for hard alloys like fountain-pen nib tips and electrical contacts.
from From the Greek 'osme,' meaning smell or odor — named in the early 1800s by the English chemist Smithson Tennant, who isolated it from the gritty residue left when platinum ore is dissolved. The name nods to its volatile oxide, osmium tetroxide, which gives off a sharp, irritating, chlorine-like stench. So this proudest, heaviest of metals is, etymologically, simply 'the stinky one.'
- density king
- Twice as dense as lead, by volume
- deadly fumes
- Its oxide can blind you permanently
- name origin
- Greek for smell, after its toxic stink
- pen tips
- Once tipped premium fountain pens for durability
- rarest metal
- Among Earth's scarcest stable elements
osmium price spike 2008 — reached $12,500 per troy ounce during financial crisis, world's densest element
osmium tetroxide catalyst — used in sharpless dihydroxylation, won 2001 nobel prize in chemistry