Period 6 element niobium, occurs in the minerals tantalite, columbite and coltan (a mix of columbite and tantalite). Tungsten, also known as wolfram, is a chemical element with the chemical symbol W and atomic number 74. The word "tungsten" comes from the Swedish language "tung sten" directly translatable to "heavy stone", though the name is "volfram" in Swedish to distinguish it from Scheelite, in Swedish alternatively named "tungsten". A hard, rare metal under standard conditions when uncombined, tungsten is found naturally on Earth only in chemical compounds. It was identified as a new element in 1781, and first isolated as a metal in
Melting-point depression simulations theorize that the supporting substrate affects the extent of melting-point depression of a nanoparticle. These models account for energetic interactions between the substrate materials. A free nanoparticle, as many theoretical models assume, has a different melting temperature (usually lower) than a supported particle due to the absence cohesive energy between the nanoparticle and substrate. However, measurement of the properties of a freestanding nanoparticle remains impossible, so the extent of the interactions cannot be verified through experiment. Ultimately, substrates currently support nanoparticles for all nanoparticle applications, so substrate/nanoparticle interactions are always present and must impact melting point depression. Within the