Rhenium
Renio (Re, Z=75)
- Date
- 1925 · confidence high
- Place
- Berlin, Germany
- Credited to
- Walter Noddack, Ida Tacke and Otto Berg
- People
- 👤 Ida Noderikash1896–1978👤 Otto Berg1873–1939👤 Walter Noddack1893–1960
- Field
- Matter & energy
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
Detected by X-ray spectroscopy in platinum and columbite; in 1928 they isolated one gram from 660 kg of molybdenite. The last stable element to be discovered.
Ogawa claimed 'nipponium' in 1908; it is now believed he had in fact found rhenium.
What it led to
- Superalloys for jet engine turbines
- Platinum-rhenium catalysts for petrol reforming
- Mass spectrometer filaments
Built on
- Atomic number (Moseley's law)1913-1914
- Moseley's law
- X-ray spectroscopy
Made possible
- Single-crystal turbine superalloy
- Pt-Re reforming catalyst