Chemical Element: rhenium

(Modern Latin: from Latin Rhenus, in honor of the Rhine River in Germany; metal)

Chemical-Element Information

Symbol: Re
Atomic number: 75
Year discovered: 1925

Discovered by: Walter Karl Friedrich Noddack (1893-1960), German chemist and Ida Eva Tacke (1896-?), German chemist.


  • Although they did not know it at the time, Noddack and Tacke (they were married the next year) had discovered the eighty-first and last element that possessed stable isotopes.
  • They also announced the discovery of element 43 at the same time as that of rhenium, which they called “masurium”, after a district in eastern Germany.
  • In this case; however, their observations were mistaken.
  • Rhenium was detected in platinum ores and columbite.
  • The metal and its alloys have found limited application as fountain-pen points, high-temperature thermocouples, catalysts, electrical contact points, instrument-bearing points, and in electric components.

Name in other languages:

French: rhénium

German: Rhenium

Italian: renio

Spanish: renio


Information about other elements may be seen at this Chemical Elements List.

A special unit about words that include chemo-, chem- may be seen here.