Osmium is a rare and expensive metallic element used mainly in alloys to make them stronger. It has a hexagonal crystal structure and is one of the heaviest elements. Its discovery is credited to English chemists Smithson Tennant and William Hyde Wollaston. Osmium is used in fountain pen nibs, electrical contacts, and medical devices, and its compound is used in fingerprinting and research laboratories. It is non-toxic, but osmium tetroxide is extremely poisonous and can cause damage to the mucous membranes and lungs.
Osmium is a metallic chemical element of the platinum family. This element is quite rare and as a result tends to be quite expensive, making commercial applications quite limited. The metal tends to be used mostly in alloys, often in very small quantities to make the metal stronger and more durable without increasing the cost too much. Most of the world’s supply is found in Turkey and Bulgaria, although it also appears in small quantities in other regions; the element rarely appears in pure form, but combines with other metals in the form of minerals.
When isolated, osmium is an extremely hard silvery metal with a slightly blue tinge and a tightly packed hexagonal crystal structure, making it an extremely dense element. It is among the heaviest elements, along with iridium, a close neighbor on the periodic table. The atomic number of osmium is 76 and the metal is identified by the symbol Os on the periodic table. This element is also present in an assortment of compounds, including osmium tetroxide, a toxic compound with numerous uses in science.
Credit for the discovery of osmium is generally given to English chemists Smithson Tennant and William Hyde Wollaston. The two men were working platinum, attempting to purify the metal, in 1803 when they isolated two distinctive and unknown elements, which turned out to be osmium and iridium. They officially published their findings in 1804, naming the element from the Greek osme, “an odor,” after the characteristic odor of the compound form.
Because this element is so rare, its expense has made it prohibitively expensive to work with and few uses have been developed. It’s used in a bonded form in things like fountain pen nibs, electrical contacts, and medical devices, as it makes metals much stronger. A compound is used in fingerprinting and osmium tetroxide is used in chemistry and biology research laboratories. The element was also once used in light bulbs, although this was rare as other elements such as tungsten are easier to work with, cheaper and more effective.
This element itself is non-toxic, although osmium tetroxide is extremely poisonous. Like other elements, its particles can cause damage to the mucous membranes because they act as irritants. Prolonged exposure to dust can damage your lungs; people participating in any activity with this dust-generating element should wear a mask.
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