Here in the United States, steel is king. After all, this is the country that imports more steel than any other nation in the entire world. Steel is used for buildings, for infrastructure, for cars, and even for manufacturing processes. With a high melting point and impressive strength, steel is an ideal multipurpose metal.
However, there are metals out there that are even better than steel. Take molybdenum, for instance, a metal that was first recognized as an element back in the late eighteen century. The molybdenum manufacturing process has advanced quite significantly in recent years, making the molybdenum manufacturing process more straightforward and simple than it ever has before. Using a variety of vacuum furnace parts the typical molybdenum manufacturer has made the molybdenum manufacturing process as straight forward as is possible.
And the greater accessibility and use of the molybdenum manufacturing process is a hugely ideal thing, due to the fact that molybdenum is incredibly useful. Part of its usefulness is due to its incredibly high melting point, which exceeds 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit, higher even than steel itself. In addition to this, molybdenum glass electrodes, if they have a purity that reaches or exceeds 99.95%, can easily withstand chemical corrosion, chemical degradation, and even glass discoloring over the course of time.
But along with the importance of the molybdenum manufacturing process, tungsten manufacturing methods have been found to be equally as important. After all, tungsten is perhaps an even more useful element than molybdenum, and one that has almost as long of a history. In fact, tungsten was first discovered back in the year of 1781, though it was not put into use until the 20th century.
It has an incredibly high melting point of more than 6,000 degrees Fahrenheit, making it the metal with the highest melting point in all of the world, considerably higher even than the melting point of molybdenum. Tungsten also boasts the highest tensile strength as well as the lowest vapor pressure of any other metal or element. In addition to all of this, tungsten has been found to be as much as two times as dense as steel, an already dense material out there.
So why don’t we use tungsten more frequently? Why do we rely so much on the molybdenum manufacturing process and even the use of steel? It all comes down to accessibility and using what is the most cost efficient and readily available. After all, tungsten is a relatively rare material, even as prized as it is (and perhaps this makes it even more prized than ever before). In fact, for every 1,000 kilometers of the Earth’s crust that are surveyed, only around 1.25 grams of tungsten will be found, a comparatively tiny amount by just about any standards.
And tungsten must occur naturally, and the process of natural creation is quite specific indeed. Scientists have discovered that, in order for tungsten to be formed, four major mineral forms must be present. These major mineral forms combined with calcium, iron, and manganese can create tungsten, but this is not as commonly found as most people might think. In fact, as evidenced above, this is not particularly frequent at all.
Therefore, the use of steel and the importance of the molybdenum manufacturing process becomes much more clear. Steel, which certainly not as ideal as tungsten in many different ways, is much more readily found throughout the world and is still quite the impressive material, ideal if not AS ideal as the materials discussed above for many purposes. In fact, the use of steel in the automotive industry has already saved many lives, providing a crush resistant caging system for many a car and other such motor vehicle here in the United States and often far beyond it as well.
Steel has also been, in many ways, on the forefront of innovation. After all, it’s steel that is frequently used in the fields of manufacturing and robotics, where it plays a critical role in a number of processes. Though steel itself might not be particularly innovative, it can certainly help along the processes of innovation and progress by quite a bit all around the entire world.
