The most complex metal on earth!

Indexed: 2026-05-18

[00:00:00]This metal has the highest melting point of anything on Earth, and you might have some of it in your pocket right now.

[00:00:04]Tungsten isn't the most well-known of metals. Most of it comes from China, who control about 80% of the global supply.

[00:00:10]Because it has such a high melting point, it's really complicated to produce. First, it's mined from a gray heavy mineral called wolfermite, buried deep in hard rock deposits. That ore gets crushed and concentrated, then chemically processed with sodium hydroxide at high heat to produce ammonium paratungstate. That compound gets roasted in a furnace to produce tungsten oxide, a yellow powder which is then reduced with hydrogen gas at extreme temperatures to finally produce pure tungsten metal powder. But because tungsten is so hard and has such a high melting point, you can't cast it like steel or gold. You can't even melt it in a normal furnace. Instead, that powder gets pressed into a mold and centered, heated just below its melting point under enormous pressure until the particles fuse together. The result is one of the densest, hardest metals humans have ever worked with. A block of tungsten the size of about a shoe box weighs more than a grown adult. It's then used in filaments of light bulbs, the tip of drill bits, armor-piercing rounds, and the vibration weight inside your phone that makes it buzz.