Rhenium metal is used as an additive to tungsten and molybdenum-based alloys to impart useful properties at elevated temperatures. The outstanding properties of rhenium and rhenium alloys suggest their use in many specialized applications. For instance, superalloys designed for the hot section of high-performance turbine engines contain rhenium.

Industrial Applications

Rhenium metal is also used to manufacture filaments for mass spectrophotometers and ion gauges. Rhenium-molybdenum alloys are superconductors at very low temperatures (e.g., 10 K). Rhenium is also used in electrical contact material as it has good wear resistance and withstands arc corrosion. In instrumentation, thermocouples made of W-Re are extensively used for measuring high temperatures up to 2200°C.

Rhenium is now widely used for filaments for mass spectrographs and for ion gauges for measuring high vacuum. Its ductility, chemical properties, including the fact that it does not react with carbon to form a carbide, and its emission characteristics make it superior to tungsten for these applications.

Rhenium has received considerable acclaim as an electrical contact material. It possesses excellent resistance to wear as well as arc erosion. Furthermore, the contact resistance of rhenium is extremely stable because of its good corrosion resistance in addition to the fact that possible formation of an oxide film on the contacts would not cause any appreciable change in the contact resistance since the resistivity of the oxide is almost the same as that of the metal. Extensive tests for some types of make-andbreak switching contacts has shown rhenium to have 20 times the life of platinum palladium contacts currently in use.

Moreover, rhenium wire is used in flash lamps for photography. Finally, rhenium catalysts are exceptionally resistant to poisoning from nitrogen, sulfur, and phosphorus, and platinum-rhenium catalysts are used for hydrogenation of fine chemicals, hydrocracking, reforming, and the disproportionation of alkenes.