r/chemistry • u/Captain_Iridium • 2d ago
A hammered-finish pure Rhenium (Element 75) ring I made and mirror-polished
Hello，I'm Captain Iridium, first-time poster here!
I have loved corrosion-resistant metals for 34 years and have been handcrafting rings from pure refractory metals （Ir, Ru, Rh, Re, Ta, Nb, Hf, Zr, etc.) since 2010.
This is a ring I made from pure Rhenium.
Rhenium is very difficult to work with and polish.I have spent 16 years improving my hand-polishing skills for rare metals. It was a big challenge to polish each small hammered mark into a true mirror shine, with zero coating or plating.
Among all the metals in the periodic table, Rhenium is my 4th favorite metal—right after Iridium, Rhodium, and Tantalum. At room temperature, Rhenium in compact (solid) form hardly reacts with air or water, and it can resist hydrochloric acid and dilute sulfuric acid under normal conditions. Some articles say that Rhenium can even withstand aqua regia, but that is completely wrong! (In fact, Rhenium dissolves easily in nitric acid and aqua regia.) The reason for this myth is that a book named Corrosion Guide misspelled "Rhodium" as "Rhenium". Many later books and articles blindly cited that chapter, spreading such a big mistake!😁😁😁
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u/t3hjs 2d ago
1) metal aside, thats absolutely beautiful
2) the fact that its made of rhenium is super interesting. it has a dark distinctive look that gets highlighted by the mirror finish
3) you have made a pure rhodium ring? ive always fantasized about one. it just feels a step above gold jewelry in the same way gold jewelry itself is a step above gold plated jewelry. cause people use rhodium to plate gold sometimes (totally dont get it, just admire the metal for what it is, but ok)
4) Ive heard Iridium is the whitest (brightest?) metal, besides silver. is that true? does that fact hold up when polished?
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u/Captain_Iridium 2d ago
Thank you! I have made several Rh rings in the past 16 years. i will show them in the future.
and Rh is whiter than Ir. but fresh Al is whiter than Rh.
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u/95percentconfident 2d ago
Aluminum is such a normal every day metal except we rarely ever get to see its true form.
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u/t3hjs 2d ago
Al? aluminium?
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u/Captain_Iridium 2d ago
Yes! In vacuum, fresh Aluminum is brighter. But when exposed to air, it is always covered by an oxide film, so in reality it looks darker than Rhodium!
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u/t3hjs 2d ago
ah, super interesting
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u/Captain_Iridium 2d ago
Yes! To borrow Gandalf's famous words from «The Lord of the Rings»: corrosion-resistant metals really are amazing creatures. You can learn all that there is to know about their ways in a month, and yet after a hundred years, they can still surprise you!
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u/sunseeker2025 2d ago
Rhenium is vital to the production of turbine blades for jet engines. The US’s ability to manufacture with it keeps us ahead of our adversaries. That’s also why Chinese turbines can have a shockingly short life.
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u/Captain_Iridium 2d ago
Those are single-crystal nickel-based superalloys! Honestly, America's single-crystal superalloy technology is truly impressive. Famous alloys like the 2nd generation PWA 1484 (3% Re), Rene N5 (3% Re), and CMSX-4 (3% Re), or the 3rd generation Rene N6 (5.4% Re) and CMSX-10 (6% Re), are true masterpieces!
But when it comes to pure Rhenium (99.99% Re), there is no difference anywhere in the world. Working with pure Re on the workbench is a completely different world from casting superalloys, and a Rhenium atom is the same everywhere!
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u/sunseeker2025 2d ago
You are obviously much better informed than I. It was the alloys I was speaking of. I read reports that the Chinese military jet engines are junk after six minutes of afterburner. God bless America 🇺🇸 🫡
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u/Captain_Iridium 2d ago
Haha, well, the good news is that nobody has an afterburner on their finger!
Whether an engine lasts 6 minutes or 6000 hours, I leave that to the aerospace engineers. I just prefer making pure Rhenium rings that can shine peacefully on a human hand for 60 years. Wishing you all the best!
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u/Certain-Culture7659 1d ago
Os aviões chineses caem depois de 10 minutos?
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u/sunseeker2025 1d ago
Absolutely NOT. The Chinese lack the metallurgical knowledge to produce the same quality of military jet engines. Their domestic C-919 was a joke. But they have GREAT engineers.
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u/andarilho_sem_rumo 2d ago
Loved the glazed -like aspect on its surface. Can you post more of your other works with unnusual metals in rings?
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u/forgothatdamnpasswrd 2d ago
You’re telling me I didn’t have to use HF for one of my digestions today? lol
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u/Captain_Iridium 2d ago
hahahahaha
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u/forgothatdamnpasswrd 1d ago
My misfortune has brought another rhenium sample my way. I’m going to try it out and see if you’re correct. You said just nitric would work?
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u/VauntedFungus 2d ago
Did you cut it from a sheet and shape it, or did you TIG weld a strip? I'm assuming you can't solder it.
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u/Captain_Iridium 2d ago
I start by making a solid Rhenium blank. After full densification, I hollow the ring right out of that single solid piece. Then it goes through fine hand-finishing and many stages of hand-polishing. Because pure Rhenium is so tough to work with, I also modified some of my own equipment to make sure I get a much better finish!
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u/Limp-Blueberry-2507 1d ago
How do you get it to be a solid blank? I have 1/4 kilo of 99.999% rhenium pellets from a turbine recycling company and want to maybe make bars with them. Were you able to melt it, or what was your process?
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u/Captain_Iridium 1d ago
i use standard rhenium ingots(not recycling), melting by vacuum arc furnace( at first) or other way(now)😁 ， but densification is very important.
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u/95percentconfident 2d ago
This tickles a part of my brain in the best possible way. I don’t really care about jewelry, but this I like.
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u/TransportationNo8855 2d ago
The ring is beautiful, sorry to bother you but I would like to ask, what is the second image? Did you buy the composition you wanted to a company?
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u/Captain_Iridium 2d ago
Thank you! and u mean the 2nd picture? this is a part of the book "corrosion guide", i bought many years ago.
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u/mvhcmaniac Inorganic 2d ago
Would you make a ring for commission?? It's long been a dream of mine to have an iridium, rhenium, or rhodium wedding band.
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u/Oxidizer194 1d ago
It's beautiful, I've always loved the idea of an Iridium ring, I hope you can share more of your work!
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u/scillahawk 1d ago
Just started getting into metal-related hobbies, and can appreciate the time and effort that must've gone into this.
I love the hammer finish -- it gives a soft of impressionist monochrome painting vibe.
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u/Slartibartfast39 1d ago
I really like that texture. That's the texture I picked for my wedding ring more than 10 years ago. It's a bit more non descript and a bit matt now.
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u/cheeseitmeatbags 2d ago
Very good looking ring! Was it really hard to work? Can you use normal matel polish to get that shine?
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u/Captain_Iridium 2d ago
Thank you! Yes, it is really very difficult to work with and polish. Regular metal polish won't work on pure Rhenium well.
I have spent 16 years researching and improving my skills on this. Over the years, I modified quite a few special tools and tested many special polishing compounds to get this true mirror shine. So please allow me to keep the exact recipe as my little secret! 😁
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u/Wise-Friendship-1427 1d ago
Very nice!
Why did you choose Rhenium?
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u/Captain_Iridium 1d ago
Thank you! I have also made other corrosion-resistant metals rings, such as Ir, Rh, Ru, Ta, Nb, Hf, Zr, Pd, etc.
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u/Clancys_shoes 1d ago
Make Os next.
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u/Captain_Iridium 1d ago
I have made Os ring 7 years ago, but i don't want to make Os anymore because of the harmful effect to the maker( means me😁) during the process .
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u/PinkBadger 1d ago
It’s gorgeous. How would it handle being removed or cut for a medical emergency? Possible or not with standard tools in an ER?
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u/KGC96 1d ago
I’m curious about the effects of wearing it on the skin for prolonged periods of time. Is there anything dangerous about handling or maybe absorbing some from prolonged skin to skin contact. Even as a chemistry teacher rhenium is actually an element I know strikingly little about
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u/Captain_Iridium 1d ago edited 1d ago
Good question! Much respect to you as a chemistry teacher—Rhenium is so rare that most textbooks barely cover its real-world behavior.
Wearing solid pure Rhenium on the skin for decades is safe. We can look at this from both theoretical chemistry and 10 years of real-world practice:
Electrochemical Theory: Rhenium has a positive standard reduction potential, Because human sweat is a non-oxidizing environment, it is thermodynamically impossible for sweat to corrode solid Rhenium at room temperature. no ion release, nothing for the skin to absorb.
Biomedical & Toxicological Safety: Mo-Re and
Co-Cr-Re alloys are used in biomedical stents and orthopedic implants.
My
Practice: I have been made and hand-polishing pure Rhenium for 16 years, and I have customers who have worn my pure Rhenium rings on their fingers for 10 years, still with no problem.
Hope these will be helpful for you.😁
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u/char11eg 1d ago
I’m not here to say it’s not safe. I don’t have close to the medical knowledge nor knowledge about Rhenium to comment.
But saying that customers of yours have used them for a decade with no issues is nowhere near evidence of safety. Asbestos was in FAR more widespread use for FAR longer, and look at what we know about that now?
Things can have an impact over a much longer timespan than a decade, or have effects that a person might not notice, or have effects that they might notice and not attribute to the rhenium. If somebody just felt, say, 5% more tired than if they didn’t wear the ring, they might never know they’re feeling 5% more tired because of the ring. But they’re still experiencing an impact.
This is why medical testing for pharmaceuticals is so extensive and rigorous, as it is very easy to miss issues in small sample sizes, in studies without effective control groups in place, and in studies over too short a timespan.
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u/Captain_Iridium 1d ago
Fair point! I checked some literature on this, and we actually do have hard scientific data:
Controlled ISO 10993 Studies: Pure Rhenium coatings and Mo-Re alloys used in orthopedic and cardiovascular implants have passed rigorous ISO 10993 biocompatibility testing with control groups, proving zero cytotoxicity and zero sensitization. Compared to standard white gold/alloys that leach Nickel ions, pure Rhenium is actually much kinder to human skin.
Fast Clearance (No Bioaccumulation): Even when soluble Rhenium ions are injected directly into veins in nuclear medicine studies, Rhenium does not accumulate in the body like lead or mercury: 70% to 90% is excreted in urine within 24–72 hours (biological half-life ~19 hours).
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u/KGC96 6h ago
Thanks for the interesting breakdown and taking the time to respond! It truly is a beautiful element. I’ll pass along the information when I’m sure a student will ask “what does this element do”. I love learning about elements more and more each day I have a fair amount of the table memorized just by using it so much every day but even still my gaps still exist so I’m so glad I got some more real use knowledge!
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u/Fenrificus 1d ago
Ive got an almost identical wedding ring but made out of palladium. Unfortunately the hand beaten pattern has worn down/smoothed over the years and is much less noticeable now.
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u/Raneynickelfire 13h ago
Now do it with Palladium if you think rhenium was difficult to work with!
Joking aside, I think that ring is beautiful and you did excellent work and you should be VERY proud of yourself - I am. Well done!
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u/Dangerous-Billy Analytical 2d ago
Isn't that like enough rhenium to retire on? Beautiful work, though.