Fausto d'Elhuyar & Juan José d'Elhuyar

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Fausto d'Elhuyar & Juan José d'Elhuyar

1755-1833

Spanish chemists who first isolated the element tungsten in 1783. The brothers, who had studied mineralogy, were analyzing a mineral called wolframite when they made their discovery. For this reason, tungsten is sometimes called wolfram, and its chemical symbol is W. The brothers later went to South America to supervise the Spanish mining industry. Today, tungsten is used to produce very hard steels.