THE STOEY OF THE PKODUCTION AND USES OF 

 DUCTILE TANTALUM 1 



By Clarence W. Balke 

 Fan steel Products Co. (Inc.) 



In the year 1801, Hatchett discovered the oxide of a new metal in 

 a black mineral which he obtained from the British Museum. He 

 named the metal columbium and the mineral columbite, because the 

 mineral originally came from Massachusetts. A year later Eckeberg 

 made a similar discovery while working with some new minerals from 

 Sweden, and he named the new metal which he discovered tantalum. 

 Subsequently, a number of other investigators announced the discov- 

 ery of new metals in tantalum- and columbium-bearing ores which 

 were all shown to be mixtures of these two, and in 1866 Marignac de- 

 veloped his classical method for their separation, which depends upon 

 the difference in solubility of their double fluorides with potassium. 



The first mention of tantalum in the metallic form is that obtained 

 by Berzelius. In 1824 he obtained a very impure product, containing 

 not over 60 per cent of metal and having a specific gravity of 10, 

 by reducing potassium tantalum fluoride with potassium. In 1902, 

 Moissan produced a very hard and brittle form of tantalum high 

 in carbon and having a specific gravity of about 12.8. In 1903, Dr. 

 W. von Bolton, working in Germany, developed a process for the pro- 

 duction of tantalum of sufficient purity to make it possible to produce 

 drawn filament wire for incandescent lamps, and during the years 

 1905 to 1911 probably over 100,000,000 of these lamps were produced. 

 This material as a filament wire was then replaced by tungsten. 



About 20 years ago the writer became interested in these elements and 

 devoted a number of years to the study of their various compounds 

 and to the determination of their atomic weights. More recently, be- 

 lieving in the commercial value of this metal, an investigation was 

 begun with the idea of producing the metal in commercial quantities. 

 During the present year this investigation was brought to a successful 

 conclusion, and it is now possible to produce tantalum characterized 

 by high purity and capable of being worked into sheet, rod, or wire. 



OCCURRENCE OP TANTALUM 



The elements tantalum and columbium are usually found associated 

 with each other in their ores. The most important minerals contain- 

 ing these elements are columbite and tantalite, which are really 



1 Paper, slightly abridged, presented at the Richmond meeting of the American In- 

 stitute of Chemical Engineers, Dec. 6-9, 1922. Reprinted by permission from Chemical 

 and Metallurgical Engineering, Dec. 27, 1922. 



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