Tantalum Facts
Tantalum Facts
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| Interesting Tantalum Facts: |
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| In 1802, Anders Ekeberg of Sweden discovered tantalum. |
| The year before, the element columbium had been discovered by Charles Hatchett. |
| In 1809, another scientist, William Hyde Wollaston, compared both discoveries and realized they were both the same element. |
| Further dispute over the results in 1846 led to the discovery of niobium as well. |
| Tantalum is highly ductile and highly conductive of both electricity and heat. |
| It is well known for its ability to resist corrosion by acid, even aqua regia, or the destructive nitrohydrochloric acid. |
| It is believed that tantalum is found in the Earth's crust between one and two parts per million. |
| There are a wide variety of minerals that contain tantalum, but only five that are viable for commercial uses at the present: euxenite, microlite, polycrase, tantalite, and wodginite. |
| Of these minerals, tantalite is the most important for tantalum mining. |
| Tantalite is almost identical to columbite, the mineral at the center of the early controversy about the element. |
| When tantalum exceeds niobium in the mineral, it is labeled tantalite; when the niobium content is greater than that tantalum content, the mineral is columbite. |
| Due to tantalum's high density, gravitational separation is the most common way to extract the element from minerals. |
| Tantalum has two naturally occurring isotopes, one of which is stable. |
| Tantalum's unstable isotope, Ta-180m, is the scarcest isotope in the Universe. |
| Tantalum has been studied as a potential salting agent in nuclear weapons, which would increase the radioactive fallout and affect a wider area. |
| Through the theoretical tantalum salting, the intensity of the gamma rays to over one million electron-volts each. |
| Most of the tantalum used commercially is in its powdered form for building electronics. |
| Tantalum is also widely used as an alloy due to its high melting point and anti-corrosion properties. |
| Tantalum is also biocompatible, making it used in medical implants and the coatings of implants. |
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