Tungsten's Melting Point Is the Highest of Any Metal, and It Shows
At 3,422°C, tungsten's melting point traces directly to unusually strong metallic bonding in its BCC lattice, the real reason it resists heat so well.
Tungsten holds a real, specific distinction among all metallic elements: the highest melting point of any of them, a direct consequence of unusually strong metallic bonding in its body-centred cubic lattice.
Why bond strength, not just atomic mass, drives this
Melting point depends on how much thermal energy is needed to disrupt a solid’s interatomic bonds enough for atoms to move freely, and tungsten’s electron configuration allows an unusually large number of electrons to participate in metallic bonding across its lattice, producing real, exceptionally strong cohesion, the reason behind both the extreme melting point and tungsten’s high density, nearly identical to gold’s, covered on gold’s materials science page, despite the two elements otherwise behaving completely differently.
Why almost as hard as diamond, as tungsten carbide
Pure tungsten metal is strong but not exceptionally hard on its own. Combined with carbon as tungsten carbide (WC), and bonded with the cobalt covered on cobalt’s mechanics page, the resulting cemented carbide reaches hardness levels genuinely approaching diamond’s, the real materials-science basis for the cutting tool and drill bit applications covered on this material’s application-wise page.
Sources: melting point, bonding, and hardness of tungsten and tungsten carbide draw on standard materials science references (ASM Handbook); lattice parameter is a standard crystallographic value.