Chemical Element: rhenium
(Modern Latin: from Latin Rhenus, in honor of the Rhine River in Germany; metal)
Chemical-Element Information
Symbol: ReAtomic 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.