UTILIZATION OF RHENIUM IN CONTEMPORARY TECHNOLOGY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-00809A000600300682-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 7, 2011
• Sequence Number: 682
• Publication Date: May 5, 1950
• Content Type: REPORT

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/09/08: CIA-
CLASSIFICATION coNFIDENTIAL CONFIDENTIAL
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY REPORT
INFORMATION FROM
FOREIGN DOCUMENTS OR RADIO BROADCASTS CD NO.
COUNTRY
SUBJECT
HOW
PI IRI ICNED
WHERE
PUBLISHED
DATE
PUBLISHED
LANGUAGE
Scientific - Rhenium, electrical materials
Monthly periodical
Moscow
Aug 1948
THIS DOCUMENT CON-1 INFORMATION A06TINl THE NATIONAL OESCHNT
Or TNC UNITCO STATES WITHIN THE UTAHINN OF ESr1ONAAN ACT rO
N N. c.. ES ANN -AS ucHOCO ITS ruuNnnaH oA THN ESruAnoN
or m coNrNHES a ANT ^..... To AN u uI.ouESO ESN... IS r.o.
HISIIlO .1 CAIV. PRODUCTION Or THIS FORM IS RONIUIUO
DATE OF
INFORMATION
DATE DIST. 5 May 1950
SUPPLEMENT TO
REPORT NO.
E. P. Libman
Cand Econ Sci
The position ci rhenium in the periodic system below manganese, on the one
hand, and between wolfram and osmium, on the other hand, indicated the method of
searching for it in natural compounds. Rhenium was first discovered in Russian
platinum ore (0.0001 percent). Later it was found in Norwegian molybdenites and
other minerals.
Interest in its practical uses developed as soon as the first quantities
of rhenium were obtained. First of all, it was used in electrical technology.
Electric bulb filaments made of it proved more durable than those made of wol-
fram. A coating of rhenium on wolfram filaments in vacuum tubes reduced the
radiation of electrons and the dispersion of wolfram. The next use of rhenium
was in measuring instruments, especially in alloys with platinum in the manufac-
ture of thermocouples for measuring temperatures up to 2,000 degrees centigrade.
Rhenium is'also utilized as a catalyst in various chemical processes.
The presence of rhenium in mineral rocks is being studied more thorougly, at
present than the many more abundant elements. Contemporary geochemical minds are
turning towards isolated districts which have extraordinary accumulations of rheni-
um. A. Ye. Fersman believes that a concentration of rhenium is possible, in the
metallic core of the earth and also in its sulfide envelope. There is a drop in
the rhenium content of plutonic magma silicate and in old crystallized minerals,
rich in iron and magnesium. Rhenium does not occur in chromites, magnetites, or
olivines. It accumulates in residual granite fusions; it is frequently present
in molybdenites and the rare-earth mineral, gadolinite, and, in particular, in
compounds of a number of other rare-earth elements eueh as erbium and ytterbium
oxides.
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ARMY
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 For contemporary study, the most inte.csting rhenium bearers are high-tempera-
ture sulfide ores. But even in the same vein, the ratio of rhenium and molybdenum
is seldom constant. In general, the rhenium content in molybdenites from deposits
in different countries varies greatly--from 1.8 to 21.8 grams per ton of ore. The
hypothesis that diffused rhenium passes into oceans in the form of a readily solu-
ble ion and, perhaps, is also absorbed by soil deposits should be mentioned.
At present, therefore, it may be assumed that high-temperature sulfides--
particularly cuprous molybdenum ores, including those lacking a commercially valu-
able molybdenum content--are sources of raw rhenium material. To these may be ad-
ded titanium, rare-earth, and platinum ores. Soviet research workers have cor-
rectly demonstrated that rhenium extraction must be carried on simultaneously with
the extraction of a numbor of other valuable and rare elements.
In spite of the fact that there are plants in foreign countries engaged in
the extraction of rhenium, there are no exactly defined raw rhenium material speci-
fications. The experience of industrial enterprises which obtain rhenium from
complex ores and tailings in nonferrous metallurgy is, of course, insufficient to
work out such conditions. Consequently, the problem of the technical possibilities
and economic expediency of the commercial utilization of rhenium-bearing raw ma-
terial must be solved in each concrete case on the basis of corresponding techno-
logical investigations.
The molybdenum glance, from which the first grams of rhenium were obtained
under laboratory conditions, contained only 0.0002 percent rhenium. The tailings
in the Mansfeld Factory in Thuringia, in which industrial production of rhenium
first started, contained 0.0005 percent of this metal. During its whole period
of industrial production of rhenium, Germany obtained only about 300-400 kilograms
In the USSR, geochemical and chemicotechnological work in extracting rhenium
from native raw material was begun long before the World War II. The vast miners-
logic material collected from various deposits in the Soviet Union has been studied
for a number of years. These studies have established the high rhenium :ontent
in ore concentrates produced in large quantities by some of the concentration
plants. Thus, during the years of the Stalin Five-year Plan, a reliable basis has
been created for the industrial extraction of rhenium.
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CONFIDENTIAL
C0NFIDE J IT 1M
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/09/08: CIA-RDP80-00809A000600300682-1