Osmium has the highest melting point and the lowest vapor pressure of any of the platinum group of metals. Osmium tetroxide has recently been used to detect fingerprints and as an aid to stain fatty tissue for microscope slides. The metal is almost entirely used to produce very hard alloys with other metals of the platinum group. Osmium is available as metal and compounds with purities from 99% to 99.999% (ACS grade to ultra-high purity); metals in the form of foil, sputtering target, and rod, and compounds as submicron and nanopowder.

Osmium facts, including appearance, CAS #, and molecular formula and safety data, research and properties are

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Oxides are available in forms including powders and dense pellets for such uses as optical coating and thin film applications. Oxides tend to be insoluble. Fluorides are another insoluble form for uses in which oxygen is undesirable such as metallurgy, chemical and physical vapor deposition and in some optical coatings. Osmium is available in soluble forms including chlorides, nitrates and acetates. These compounds are also manufactured as solutions at specified stoichiometries.

All elemental metals, compounds and solutions may be synthesized in ultra high purity (e.g. 99.999%) for laboratory standards, advanced electronic, metallurgy and optical materials and other high technology advantages. Information is provided for stable (non-radioactive) isotopes. Organo-Metallic Osmium compounds are soluble in organic or non-aqueous solvents. See Analytical Services for information on available certified chemical and physical analysis techniques including MS-ICP, X-Ray Diffraction, PSD and Surface Area (BET) analysis.

Osmium was first discovered by Smithson Tennant in 1803.

osmium

Osmium

osmio

Ósmio

osmio

Osmium

Abundance. The following table shows the abundance of hafnium and each of its naturally occurring isotopes on Earth along with the atomic mass for each isotope.