Spanish chemist and mineralogist · 1754–1796
Juan José Elhuyar
Juan José Elhuyar and his younger brother Fausto were the first to isolate tungsten, in 1783.
How Tungsten was found
Juan José had studied mineralogy in Freiberg and visited Torbern Bergman in Uppsala, where Scheele had recently found tungstic acid in the mineral now called scheelite. Back in Spain, the brothers found the same acid in wolframite.
At the Royal Seminary of Bergara, in the Basque Country, they heated it with charcoal and obtained the metal itself. They called it wolfram, which is why its symbol is W.
Shared the credit
The discovery is credited jointly to these scientists.
Life and career
Born 1754 · Died 1796
Juan José was born in Logroño and trained in Paris and Freiberg. In 1784 he went to New Granada, now Colombia, to direct its silver mines, and died in Bogotá.
Discovered in the same era
Other elements identified within ten years of 1783.