Tantalum
Tantalum is a soft, ductile, grey-blue metal with a high melting point. The metal is highly resistant to chemical attack and has a high electrical capacitance.
About half of the world's tantalum metal is used in the electronics industry to manufacture capacitors and circuit board connectors mainly for mobile phones, personal computers, digital cameras and electronic systems for vehicles.
Tantalum's resistance to high temperatures and corrosion make it an ideal additive to superalloys in the manufacture of aircraft and land-based turbine blades as well as tank liners and valves in the chemical industry. Other uses include surgical implants, ballistics, carbide cutting tools and tantalum chemicals for the optical industry.
Tantalum is sourced from tantalum minerals such as tantalite, columbite, wodginite and microlite contained in pegmatite ore bodies. The largest deposits are in Australia, Brazil and Africa. The minerals are extracted using open pit and underground mining methods and processed at mine sites to produce tantalum concentrate. The concentrate is sold to processors in Europe, America and Asia who extract the tantalum metal from the concentrate.