Refining of Niobium and Tantalum

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gorfman6154

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 5, 2008
Messages
86
Location
Washington State
Here's a patent for everyone who wondered what to do with all those black, yellow, and orange surface mount Capacitors. I believe the orange ones have Niobium, instead of Tantalum.

NOTE: in this patent it mentions the use of Hydrofloric and Oxalic Acids. Do not use the Hydrofloric Acid method. You can use Oxalic Acid, which is still dangerous, but safe if proper safety measures are used.

Hope this can be of use to members of the Forum.

Method for refining hydroxides of Niobium and Tantalum: :arrow:
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4942024.html

If any of our more knowledgeable members check this out, your feedback on the feasability and safety issues would be most welcome.

Good luck, Gorfman
 
"If God sends us lemons then we must learn how to make lemonade"... this exactly what we have to do with tantalum,neobium,neodymiun,samarium and all kind of rare earths we find when we recover PM from our scraps.

Of course,we are concerned with gold,silver,PGM but these rare earths are a byproduct that could be valuable.

Here is a method to recover tantalum from scrap capacitors.I am working on it but I had a little accident last time:I melted the hole caps and the black ones (Motorola) exploded!!!!!! so I need to crush them before melting.As soon as I develope this method I promess to post it,step by step.

Have a nice day.

Manuel
 

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anyone know the value of refined / recovered tantalum ?

i know what ironmike pays but i dont know what he buy.... (what is an air vac melt / how much for the normal melt)


Scrap Tantalum (Air-Vac melt) $130 to $200 lb Call
 
ericrm said:
anyone know the value of refined / recovered tantalum ?

i know what ironmike pays but i dont know what he buy.... (what is an air vac melt / how much for the normal melt)


Scrap Tantalum (Air-Vac melt) $130 to $200 lb Call

The problem is the Air-Vac melt I don't have any way to melt the powder. but at that price someone with a vacuum arc melting furnace could make some money.

I called and asked about the air vac melt this price is on 300 kilo ingots

I have a few pound and always getting more.

Eric
 
It might go into vac melts but it is not melted in significant quantity. Tungsten, tantalum, molybdenum, hafnium and most of the other valve metals are sintered via powder metallurgy.

We produce a Ta byproduct waste--the material is something I would never try and refine.
 
Niobium and Tantalum are difficult enough to CLEAN, much less refine. Sounds like a nightmare.

We use these metals in my lab as reaction containers because they are so inert. We clean them with an HF/HNO3/H2SO4 death cocktail.
 
That certainly is a death cocktail - prepare to be nuked from space by people screaming blue murder at the mere suggestion of combining or even using some of those :twisted: :twisted:

So it does the job though on a serious note?

Jon
 
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