Tungsten scrap: pure tungsten and heavy alloy

Pure tungsten is the element on its own. Mills make it from tungsten metal powder into rod, wire and other mill products, and USGS says pure tungsten contacts, electrodes and wires go into electrical, heating, lighting and welding work. ITIA lists pure tungsten sheet and wire for high-temperature applications, and welding electrodes, among tungsten metal products.

Tungsten heavy alloy is mostly tungsten, alloyed with nickel and iron (W-Ni-Fe) or nickel and copper (W-Ni-Cu). USGS defines heavy metal alloys as “alloys that contain high levels of tungsten with copper, iron, and (or) nickel,” made for armaments, heat sinks, radiation shielding, and weights and counterweights. ITIA puts heavy alloy at up to 18.5 g/cm3 and notes that up to 850 kg of it goes into the counterweights of a Boeing 747.

Pure tungsten is about 19.3 g/cm3, close to gold. Iron is 7.874 in the NIST table, so a tungsten bar weighs roughly two and a half times an iron bar of the same size.

Sources: USGS Circular 1196-R, Tungsten Recycling in the United States in 2000 (2011); ITIA, Applications and markets; ITIA Newsletter, December 2007; NIST, X-ray mass attenuation coefficients, Table 1 (element densities).

Mills that make tungsten products from powder throw off sinter bar ends, rod and wire end trim and rejected parts, USGS says. Heavy alloy makers generate mostly turnings. Old scrap is used parts: USGS lists electrical contacts, heating elements, protective shields, sputtering targets, switches, wires and filaments.

• Solids: bars, rod ends, plate, disks, counterweights and shielding blocks.
• Wire and sheet: spool ends, filament wire, sheet offcuts and foil.
• Electrodes: new or used TIG electrodes and stubs, kept by type.
• Turnings and powder: turnings drained of coolant, powder in sealed containers.

Thoriated electrodes need a word. In the USGS study of tungsten recycling in 2000, electrodes with about 2 percent thorium oxide were the most common type for TIG welding, and “because thorium is radioactive, thoriated tungsten scrap posed special environmental challenges when recycled.” Bag them apart, label them and list them on the quote form before you send anything.

Sources: USGS Circular 1196-R (2011).

USGS describes refractory metal scrap processors hand-sorting solid pieces by alloy type, using color, shape and weight for the first pass, then removing attachments and dismantling assemblies. Do that first pass yourself.

• Pure tungsten in one bag, heavy alloy in another, any carbide in a third.
• Unbolt steel cases, brackets and fasteners from weights and shield blocks.
• Molybdenum and tantalum from the same furnace or lab job go in bags of their own; we buy molybdenum and tantalum and niobium as well.

Weight is a useful field check, but not proof. USGS lists depleted uranium and lead as substitutes for tungsten alloys where a job needs high density or radiation shielding, so an old counterweight or shield is not automatically tungsten. Lead is 11.35 g/cm3 in the NIST table, well under pure tungsten. If you are not sure what a heavy part is, tell us where it came from before you pack it.

Sources: USGS Circular 1196-R (2011); USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026, Tungsten (February 2026); NIST, X-ray mass attenuation coefficients, Table 1 (element densities).