the.com/rhenium
the last stable element discovered, hiding so well it nearly slipped Earth entirely
means Rhenium is a rare, silvery-white metal (element 75) prized for its extreme melting point and used in high-temperature superalloys for jet engines.
from Named for the Rhine, the great river of western Germany — Latin 'Rhenus.' It was discovered in the 1920s by German chemists who honored their homeland's river, just as 'germanium' had honored the nation itself. Fittingly elusive, rhenium was among the last naturally occurring stable elements to be found, so scarce it had to be coaxed out of ores in vanishing amounts.
- last found
- Final non-radioactive element discovered, in 1925
- melting point
- Third-highest of all elements, near 3186 Celsius
- jet engines
- Superalloys for turbine blades devour most production
- rare earth
- Among the rarest stable elements in the crust
- named for
- The Rhine river, by its German discoverers
rhenium-187 — stable isotope making up 62.6% of all naturally occurring rhenium on earth
rhenium mining in chile — atacama desert produces majority of world's rhenium as byproduct of copper mining