Tungsten-alloy has carcinogenic potential as demonstrated by cancer development in rats with intramuscular implanted tungsten-alloy pellets. This suggests a potential involvement of epigenetic events previously implicated as environmental triggers of cancer. Here, we tested metal induced cytotoxicity and epigenetic modifications including H3 acetylation, H3-Ser10 phosphorylation and H3-K4 trime...

The toxicity of elemental tungsten released from discharged shot was assessed against previous studies that established a 1% toxic threshold for soil organisms. Extremely heavy theoretical shot loadings of 69,000shot/ha were used to generate estimated environmental concentrations (EEC) for two brands of tungsten-based shot containing 51% and 95% tungsten. The corresponding tungsten EEC values w...

There is emerging evidence that tungsten has toxic health effects. We summarize the recent tungsten toxicity research in this short review. Tungsten is widely used in many commercial and military applications because it has the second highest melting temperature of any element. Consequently, it is important to elucidate the potential health effects of tungsten.

V. Brožek, T. F. Kubatík, Institute of Plasma Physics CAS v.v.i. Prague, Czech Republic M. Vokáč, J. Kolísko, P. Pokorný, Czech Technical University Klokner Institute, Prague. Tungsten fibers have high tensile strength but a poor oxidation resistance at elevated temperatures. Using this first characteristic and to prevent oxidation of tungsten coated composite materials in which the primary req...

Tungsten is a relatively rare metal with numerous applications, most notably in machine tools, catalysts, and superalloys. In 2003, tungsten was nominated for study under the National Toxicology Program, and in 2011, it was nominated for human health assessment under the US Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Integrated Risk Information System. In 2005, the Agency for Toxic Substances and D...

Near fully dense tungsten coatings onto molybdenum substrates have been demonstrated using the Supersonic Laser Deposition (SLD) process. This is a characteristic that is not readily achievable with refractory materials. The tensile strength of the tungsten deposited coatings, 724MPa, is comparable to that of wrought tungsten with no evidence of melting or substrate grain growth. The results ha...

We report on a process for fabricating self-aligned tungsten (W) nanowires with polycrystalline silicon core. Tungsten nanowires as thin as 10 nm were formed by utilizing polysilicon sidewall transfer technology followed by selective deposition of tungsten by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) using WF6 as the precursor. With selective CVD, the process is self-limiting whereby the tungsten formati...

A laser driven electron x-ray source (LEXS) emitting tungsten Lα lines has been built based on a high repetition rate, terawatt laser system. The Lα characteristic lines overlap with the absorption edge of Ni near 8333 eV. Using this x-ray source, the x-ray absorption spectra near the absorption edge of different Ni compounds have been measured. We term this new method “ultrafast selected energ...