Osmium introduced commercially in 1902. After only a few years, osmium was replaced by the more stable metal tungsten. Tungsten has the highest melting point among all metals, and its use in light bulbs increases the luminous efficacy and life of incandescent lamps. The light bulb manufacturer Osram (founded in 1906, when three German companies, Auer-Gesellschaft, AEG and Siemens & Halske, combined their lamp production facilities) derived its name from the elements of osmium and Wolfram (the latter is German for tungsten). Like palladium, powdered osmium effectively absorbs hydrogen atoms. This could make osmium a potential candidate for a metal-hydride battery
Melting-point depression to its cohesive energy, a (T=Ca). Since atoms near the surface have fewer bonds and reduced cohesive energy, they require less energy to free from the solid phase. Melting point depression of high surface to volume ratio materials results from this effect. For the same reason, surfaces of bulk materials can melt at lower temperatures than the bulk material. The theoretical size-dependent melting point of a material can be calculated through classical thermodynamic analysis. The result is the Gibbs–Thomson equation shown in Equation 2. formula_2 Where: T = Bulk Melting temperature A normalized Gibbs–Thomson Equation for gold nanoparticles is plotted