How much do you know about tantalum?

Tantalum is the third refractory metal after tungsten and rhenium. Tantalum has a series of excellent properties such as high melting point, low vapor pressure, good cold working performance, high chemical stability, strong resistance to liquid metal corrosion, and high dielectric constant of surface oxide film. It has important applications in high-tech fields such as electronics, metallurgy, steel, chemical industry, hard alloys, atomic energy, superconducting technology, automotive electronics, aerospace, medical and health, and scientific research. At present, the main application of tantalum is tantalum capacitors.

How was tantalum discovered?

In the mid-7th century, a heavy black mineral discovered in North America was sent to the British Museum for safekeeping. After about 150 years, until 1801, British chemist Charles Hatchett accepted the analysis task of this mineral from the British Museum and discovered a new element from it, naming it Columbium (later renamed Niobium). In 1802, Swedish chemist Anders Gustav Eckberg discovered a new element by analyzing a mineral (niobium tantalum ore) in the Scandinavian Peninsula, which had its acid converted into fluoride double salts and then recrystallized. He named this element Tantalum after Tantalus, the son of Zeus in Greek mythology.

In 1864, Christian William Blomstrang, Henry Edin St. Clair Deville, and Louis Joseph Trost clearly proved that tantalum and niobium are two different chemical elements and determined the chemical formulas for some related compounds. In the same year, Demalinia heated tantalum chloride in a hydrogen environment and produced tantalum metal for the first time through a reduction reaction. Werner Bolton first made pure tantalum metal in 1903. Scientists were the first to use the layered crystallization method to extract tantalum from niobium. This method was discovered by Demalinia in 1866. The method used by scientists today is solvent extraction of tantalum solutions containing fluoride.

Development history of tantalum industry

Although tantalum was discovered in the early 19th century, it was not until 1903 that metallic tantalum was produced, and industrial production of tantalum began in 1922. Therefore, the development of the world tantalum industry began in the 1920s, and China's tantalum industry began in 1956. The United States was the first country in the world to start producing tantalum, and began industrial scale production of metallic tantalum in 1922. Japan and other capitalist countries began developing the tantalum industry in the late 1950s or early 1960s. After decades of development, the world's tantalum industry production has reached a considerable level. Since the 1990s, there have been three major tantalum production companies: Cabot Group from the United States, HCST Group from Germany, and Ningxia Oriental Tantalum Industry Co., Ltd. from China. These three groups produce over 80% of the world's total tantalum products. The products, process technology, and equipment level of the tantalum industry abroad are generally high, which meets the needs of the rapid development of world science and technology.

The tantalum industry in China began in the 1960s. In the early stages of tantalum smelting and processing in China, the scale of production, technological level, product grade, and quality were far behind those of developed countries. Since the 1990s, especially since 1995, the production and application of tantalum in China have shown a rapid development trend. Nowadays, China's tantalum industry has achieved a transformation from small to large, from military to civilian, and from internal to external, forming the world's only industrial system from mining, smelting, processing to application. High, medium, and low-end products have entered the international market in all aspects. China has become the third strongest country in the world in tantalum smelting and processing, and has entered the ranks of the world's major tantalum industry countries.

Development Status of Tantalum Industry in China

The development of China's tantalum industry faces certain problems. If there is a shortage of raw materials and scarce resource reserves. The characteristics of China's proven tantalum resources are scattered mineral veins, complex mineral composition, low Ta2O5 grade in the original ore, fine mineral embedding particle size, and limited economic resources, making it difficult to build large-scale mines again. Although large-scale tantalum niobium deposits have been discovered in recent years, the detailed geological and mineral conditions, as well as economic evaluations, are not clear. Therefore, there are significant issues with the supply of primary tantalum raw materials in China.

The tantalum industry in China is also facing another challenge, which is the insufficient development capability of high-tech products. It cannot be denied that although China's tantalum industry technology and equipment have made great progress and have the production capacity to mass produce a full range of tantalum products, the embarrassing situation of overcapacity in the mid to low end and insufficient production capacity for high-end products such as high specific capacity high-voltage tantalum powder and tantalum target materials for semiconductors is difficult to reverse. Due to the low usage and insufficient driving force of domestic high-tech industries, the development of high-tech products in China's tantalum industry has been affected. From the perspective of enterprises, the development of the tantalum industry lacks guidance and regulation. In recent years, tantalum smelting and processing enterprises have rapidly developed from the initial 5 to 20, with serious duplication of construction and prominent overcapacity.

In years of international operation, Chinese tantalum enterprises have improved their processes and equipment, increased product scale, variety, and quality, and entered the ranks of major tantalum industry production and application countries. As long as we further solve the problems of raw materials, industrialization of high-tech products, and industrial restructuring, China's tantalum industry will definitely enter the ranks of world powers.