W Tungsten

The present supplement volume, A 7, is the first of a triad, A 5 to A 7, dealing with the chemical reactions of metallic tungsten. It describes the reactions with inorganic and organic compounds, except for formation reactions of organotungsten compounds. Volume A 6, to appear at the beginning of 1988, will cover the reactions of tungsten with metallic elements. Volume A 5, in preparation for 1988/89, will contain the reactions with nonmetallic elements and, in addition, cover the electrochemistry of tungsten. With the appearance of this last volume, the present knowledge of the chemistry of tungsten will be compiled in more than 1000 pages. In the Gmelin main volume on tungsten, published in 1933, the presentation of the information then available on the same subject required less than 6 pages. This enormous increase in relevant data over the last fifty years is stupefying, considering the fact that tungsten is a rather inert metal which is resistant to most chemical agents up to high temperatures.With afew exceptions,in fact, it was not so much the reactions of bulk tungsten which attracted the interest of the experimenters as the reactions taking place at its surface. This comes about for practical as well as scientific reasons.