Tungsten Carbide Magnetism
Is tungsten carbide magnetic?
You can’t use the World Wide Web to find a definitive answer!
The question I’ve actually got is with respect to two putative tungsten density cubes I purchased from Amazon, or rather some Amazon sub-vendor. One of them is attracted to magnets, the other is not. The magnetically-attracted cube is less dense than tungsten’s nominal density, the non-attractive cube is only slightly less dense than tungsten.
I looked around to find an answer. I found a suggestion that magnetic “tungsten” is powdered tungsten carbide sintered with either nickel or cobalt. The nickel or cobalt binder provides the magnetic attraction in this composite material.
References around the web are divided and confusing:
https://techiescientist.com/is-tungsten-magnetic/
Yes, Tungsten is partially magnetic or paramagnetic in nature because of the presence of unpaired electrons and realignment of those electron paths because of an external magnetic field. Therefore, it is weakly attracted by magnetic.
And further:
Tungsten carbide is an alloy where its magnetic property depends upon either the Cobalt or Nickel binder. And, cobalt strongly attracts a magnet, but Nickel does not. So, if Tungsten Carbide has nickel-binder, it won’t attract a magnet, while it does if the binder is cobalt.
That’s got a big falsehood in it. Nickel is most definitely ferromagnetic.
This site has an overall “generated by AI” feel to it.
https://www.boyiprototyping.com/materials-guide/is-tungsten-magnetic/
No, pure tungsten is not magnetic. Tungsten is a non-magnetic metal in its pure form, which means it does not exhibit magnetic properties like iron or nickel.
No, tungsten carbide itself is not magnetic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tungsten_carbide
Wikipedia does not mention “magnet” in its tungsten carbide page. It does say that cobalt is the most common binder for creating metal-matrix tungsten carbide composite.
Go not to Qora for counsel for they will answer both no and yes, as JRR Tolkien once told me.
https://www.quora.com/Is-tungsten-carbide-magnetic
- “Tungsten carbide is generally not magnetic”
- “WC-Co can be magnetized and shows some magnetic properties”
- “Tungsten Carbide is paramagnetic, meaning that it is only very slightly attracted to magnets”
- “Alloying element like cobalt might contribute to the magnetic property.”
https://blog.carbideprocessors.com/tungsten-carbide/tungsten-carbide-and-magnetism/
Every element in tungsten carbide is susceptible to magnetism.
I think “susceptible” here is in the electrical engineering kind, not the common usage. Also, so what? Most of the elements in stainless steel are susceptible to magnetism, and stainless is usually not magnetic.
I’m really disappointed by this. I don’t know if this is a “search results are going to hell” phenomenon, or an AI slop SEO spam problem, or it’s just too easy to put any rubbish on the Internet, so a mix of truth and falsehood shows up.