Tantalum - The MOST CONFLICT Metal On EARTH!

Thanks for the provided tantalum: www.samaterials.com/
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Do not repeat the experiments shown in this video!
So, today I want to tell you about this refractory and also a conflict making metal, tantalum. In the periodic table of chemical elements tantalum is located in the fifth group, among the so-called transitional refractory metals.
Due to its rarity and difficulty in obtaining, tantalum was named after the Greek king Tantalus. According to the legend, he offended Zeus and the other gods, for which he was cast out of heaven for an eternal torment. Like the ancient Greek king, many scientists and researchers have suffered and endured, trying to obtain this element in its pure form. Externally, tantalum looks like a grey shiny metal, and by the way quite heavy. In its density it comes next after the gold. If you take the current market price, one kilogram of tantalum costs around $150, therefore this metal is quite expensive.
Tantalum is very ductile, it’s very easy to make a wire or foil from it. This metal is extracted from the mineral coltan, the deposits of which are located in Brazil, but especially rich deposits of tantalum ores are found in Central Africa.
Recently tantalum is referred to as a conflict making metal, because a lot of African countries are fighting to get their hands on it. For example, in Congo and Rwanda there are military conflicts associated with the smuggling of tantalum ore. From about the last decade, about 9 African countries and 20 different military groups were involved in the tantalum wars. However, let’s go back to the chemical properties of the tantalum metal. From the chemical point of view, this metal is extremely stable, it is not soluble in dilute acids, even in the hydrofluoric acid due to a very robust oxide film covering the metal. One of the very few caustic environments that can dissolve tantalum is a mixture of hydrofluoric acid and nitric acid, in which from the tantalum a complex compound forms that is soluble in water. In the form of a powder tantalum burns quite well in air, forming the tantalum oxide. In spite of all its chemical stability, this metal also reacts well with molten alkalis, forming tantalates.
For example, if you pour a bit of dry sodium hydroxide on the tantalum foil and then melt it, such an aggressive environment can easily dissolve the tantalum and burn a hole in the tantalum foil. Though that’s pretty much it, you cannot conduct any other special chemical experiments with tantalum due to its inertness. The only thing we can do is heat the tantalum rod and see how fast will it oxidize in the hot flame of a gas burner. After such an abuse, tantalum rod gets covered with a white and inert substance - tantalum oxide from reacting with oxygen in air. This material is also used in creating glass that absorbs gamma rays.
Because of its plasticity and chemical stability, in the olden days tantalum was used for making filaments for light bulbs, but later with the rise of the price for this metal, tantalum was replaced with a much cheaper tungsten. The internal resistivity of tantalum is comparable to the one of steel, hence this element can be used to create heating elements instead of using nichrome, especially in places where you need a very high temperature, as tantalum melts at more or less about three thousand degrees Celsius! So, for example, it is possible to heat the tantalum wire and it will not oxidize as much. At the moment, one of the most important applications of tantalum is in manufacturing the most efficient tantalum capacitors, in electronics. In the capacitors like anode a very fine tantalum powder is used, which is pressed around the tantalum wire and is sintered to the form of a sponge. Then such sponge is anodized, i.e. is covered with a layer of tantalum pentoxide that acts as the dielectric layer. Next, the anodized tantalum sponge is covered with a layer of the cathode of manganese dioxide. Then, on top, a layer of graphite and a layer of silver is added, and now the capacitor is ready. The advantage of these capacitors is that they can be made to be extremely small, due to the very thin dielectric film. These kind of capacitors can be put into any computer, smartphone or a tablet. So say thanks to tantalum for the smartphones. Recently, jewelers are trying to use tantalum in the jewelry, as this metal is quite dense and is completely non-toxic to humans. Now even the Chinese sell tantalum rings. Hmm, would you gift your girlfriend a tantalum decoration? In my opinion, it would be quite original. However, tantalum by itself is grey and doesn’t shine as beautifully as gold.

[@InDmand]

Thanks for never really treating your viewers like idiots, always appreciate any extra details on chemistry. Keep it up man!

[@priyaj5283]

Most people here complaining about his accent. Well it's not an english tutorial so shut it. There are amazing chemical details explained here, this guy worked hard to study them and conduct experiments. You can atleast try to just listen and understand

[@fnorgen]

People are complaining? Thick accents make everything more interesting!

[@priyaj5283]

fnorgen 😁 yea.. Like the mad soviet scientists in hollywood films. Imagine them without their accent, would have felt so blank..

[@BenjaminCronce]

I only notice his accent for a few seconds, then I forget. He'e quite clear.

[@JETFOURLITRE]

His accent adds to the awesomeness of all these videos.

[@jeffw1267]

I think his accent is interesting and I've never heard a Russian accent like that. He looks Finnish to me, and I wonder what part of Russia he is from.

[@accutronitisthe2nd95]

I love how he says "Tantalum" with his accent! Tan-ta-lum, I come back to watch this video just to hear him say it, Tan-ta-lum!

[@AlphaPowell7]

You didn't mention the most unique thing about tantalum: one of its isotopes, Ta-180m! While nuclear isomers are typically very short-lived, this one is not only more stable than the ground state, it is so stable its decay has never been observed. It makes up a much smaller fraction of natural tantalum than is typical for a long-lived isotope, and is the rarest known isotope in the universe whose rarity is not due to instability. Tantalum is also the rarest element in the universe whose rarity is not due to instability

[@GarryDumblowski]

Apparently, Am-242m is the same way, though of course it's not just straight-up stable unlike Ta-180m. There's at least been talk of its use as nuclear fuel, possibly as a fuel even better than Pu-239. That said though, I've been told that there's only four stable isotopes with both an odd number of protons and neutrons: H-2, Li-6, B-10, and N-14. Wouldn't Ta-180m be a fifth one?

[@blancosal]

@@GarryDumblowski those aren't odd, those are even ;)

[@GarryDumblowski]

No, I don't mean the atomic masses are odd, I mean both the number of protons _and_ the number of neutrons are odd. H-2 has 1 (odd) proton, and 1 (odd) neutron. Just the same way, Ta-180m has 73 (odd) protons, and 107 (odd) neutrons, and is stable. Almost all stable isotopes except the five I mentioned have either an even number of protons, an even number of neutrons, or both.

[@knrz2562]

Interesting

[@raymondsternadel]

Your channel is excellent, man. Keep up the good work.

[@ag135i]

Please make a video on silicon and a very detailed video regarding it's properties and applications.

[@speculesgorgoth4055]

Ditto

[@gtxthunderstorm6219]

Yes I want too

[@atmanbrahman1872]

Your ideas are very funny. I love your humour.

[@willynebula6193]

Man can I say I look forward to every video you upload always informative and entertaining👍 cheers from Australia

[@GovertNieuwland]

Thank you! I love your channel!

[@videolabguy]

Great Video! As usual. Tantalum capacitors are the highest failure rate of all capacitors. Usually because the designer does not understand how sensitive they are to design conditions. You want to operate tantalum caps at nearly their full voltage rating, but not over that. Problem is, AC noise on the DC will exceed the destruction threshold. Some noise can be of a frequency far higher than you can see on your o'scope, yet it is still present. I call this noise "hair" as it can be hundreds if not over a thousand megahertz. Your 500MHz scope shows zero, yet the caps keep burning up. We (at Prime Image in the 1990s) finally bought a 10GHz scope that discovered this issue. Not only that, they burn fiercely and usually burn a hole through the PCB permanently destroying the product. Don't use them if there is any reasonable substitute available. Only as your last choice.

[@christopherleubner6633]

videolabguy pretty much, I've had so many tantalum caps to replace on things, very true, they fry. The only exception is wet foil tantalum caps, very super reliable. modern aluminum electrytics have caught up though.

[@guisampaio2008]

What is the best option then?

[@big0bad0brad]

Personally I think there is a lot of batch and manufacturing technique variation; some of them seem to stay good indefinitely and some start failing in droves. But for most use cases it does not cause much damage if they happen to blow up, and the failure mechanism is pretty obvious so repairs are easy to target. Unless a lot of them are failing on one board, I think it's reasonable to replace just the failing ones with whatever type makes the most sense to you, unless it seems like further incidents could cause excessive board damage. Personally I haven't seen much smouldering-through-layers kind of action, more like popcorn going off.

[@hoiwingkwan6313]

@@big0bad0brad poopooopooop

[@hoiwingkwan6313]

@@christopherleubner6633 is poopoo

[@tabpalmer3510]

I love your tantalum art!

[@danielpolak6440]

Love the vid. Good work !

[@b1aflatoxin]

I enjoyed this video! Keep up the great work Thoisoi2!!!!

[@DeeplyStill]

I love his accent! It’s him, and very easy to understand. Keep it up!

[@mealex303]

Absolutely amazing!!!

[@shashankjalaj]

Awesome! I just love your channel :) ..

[@rudyossanchez]

Hail the Geek king! \0/

[@goguhu]

You beat me to it :(

[@manichandra968]

Ros ... .

[@manichandra968]

Ros .

[@PrinzAquatic]

Ros hail kratos

[@Marin3r101]

@Anthony IdahosaErese shut up.

[@VFXTutorials]

Beautiful video!Keep it up!

[@marcusmees4625]

Awesome as always!

[@Willy-ci2lu]

i like that collored ring idea:)

[@theprofessor451]

Thank You for making this video. You are awesome 😁

[@JasonKaler]

What a tantalizing video. And not only do you learn about chemicals, but also how to improve your listening skills.

[@HansLasser]

Great work. Keep on with good job.

[@omermagen824]

Great video! Didn't actually knew anything about this element. Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us :D

[@michaelmellon45]

Very informative, my Russian friend. I do love your videos.

[@user-hq2xz8zc6r]

Thanks for providing knowledgeable videos in your channel.

[@PhilosopherRex]

Love your video's! Keep up the great work ;-)

[@jacobcasmus1882]

Great job! all your videos are super dope!!! also thank you for putting in link to buy the metals! ill be getting some soon!

[@savyasanchighose5176]

the great work of mr. thoisoi

[@bbiggs4327]

Very cool video .! The art was awesome.!

[@huntermontez8504]

Mr thoisoi we need more experiments thank you for your hard work we greatly appreciate it :)

[@dopeymark]

Thank you, very cool video.

[@Stellarffxi]

that anodizing is incredible!

[@deyvidoliveira1243]

I love yours videos! Tks.

[@bobhoe]

I don't know what you're talking about half the time but I like learning from your vids, thank you

[@LuciferMorningStar-hj5kn]

Great work

[@sumu1227]

Thanks a lot for sharing information..

[@danielf3623]

Also due to ductility and density it is used for the foil cone in shaped charges, so it has military applications (antitank rounds and missiles). Surprised that wasn't brought up regarding it's conflicty-ness.

[@hoiwingkwan6313]

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[@sophiewilliams7582]

Great video again Thoisoi. Not sure if you have done Boron yet, but I would be interested to see it. An element very useful as a reactor poison (boric acid), and also in borosilicate glass etc. Keep up the good work :)

[@Owlkisses88]

Thanks for the lesson, like all the videos you do.

[@feraudyh]

Thank you. You gave me an idea about making art from Tantalum anodization.

[@rdrdrd7777]

Subscribed!

[@JanendraYadav]

Thanks for this information

[@user-hk5ji5ws9d]

Cool Video !

[@k.tucker2011]

Love this show

[@advaithbhasi]

I think that this is the most informative and original channel on KZbin about chemicals so sir Please make a video on Flouro antimonic acid(most powerful acid)as there isn't much information about it on the Internet.

[@rdrdrd7777]

Great stuff

[@trueherbsman]

thanks for that informative video sir (Y)

[@corporalpunishment1133]

Excellent!

[@live4Cha]

You are amazing!

[@MidlandTexan]

Wow, this is really interesting an useful.

[@lauren9004]

Thank you!

[@dvorak2676]

great job

[@johnstorrie3635]

Informative treatise. I would also have mentioned its use in repair of glass lined reactors.

[@daneyand]

Keep it up. Great work. You are giving me great ideas of science experiments with my kids. Maybe consider doing a joint video with another KZbin star like physics girl?

[@campanerosdelaltoojaezcara6761]

I like it!!

[@SachinSingh48.]

Thx again

[@brabble2006]

Good video, im gonna do some experiments with mine.

[@seethegalaxy]

Thanks!

[@makeracistsafraidagain]

Thank you, Tantalum.

[@subarunatsuki4145]

Keep YOUR good video Tovarish.

[@kaustavsengupta8757]

Hey really loved your videos. By the way will like to perform giveaway that tantalum sheet with your channel name. It's kinda really cool

[@sherifaly1017]

thank you

[@AllChemystery]

next do molybdenum please

[@MattRoadhouse]

Very cool.

[@andrascsont9605]

4:52 creepy sound

[@WBV420]

andrás csont Probably just an edit.

[@sarkozygaming3629]

Good thing I have a BOYfriend

[@awesomefacepalm]

Yeah. Girlfriend sure is a creepy thing

[@GewelReal]

*g* _i_ rL -F- *_r_* I _e_*N* d

[@PumpUpTrack]

in reality he's (it is) an AI self-made by google, built to understand chemistry. This explain his accent and the robotic sound. Skynet incoming, brace yourself.

[@PLANDerLinde99]

When you heated the Tantalum rod I could see it expand slightly

[@volvo09]

What beautiful colors through electrolysis!

[@CraftAero]

I had NO idea of the Voltage vs colour electrolytic property of Tantalum. 😮 My only experience with Tantalum (IIRC, a 94%Ta alloy) was back ~1986, I was asked to make a prototype set (3 off) "heater pads". The material was ~75x75mm x 0.50mm, They were "randomly" hand cut, three sheets in an envelope with "rice paper" separators. It was smooth cold rolled with a very dark grey (likely oxide) finish. I bent a corner with my thumb and it was very soft/compliant, close to lead. The pattern... picture a PCB trace with a left & right bus bar / lug and two intricate sine-wave traces, one above the other, in phase, between the buses. Each of the 3 patterns had a slightly different "frequency" and trace width. (build&test 3/select 1). Photo / acid etching was not an option, so I sandwiched each sheet between two 6mm "ground flat" plates of aged iron (Mianite), jig-drilled the lug holes in for orientation/location, and then Wire EDM'd the patterns... in 1986, took +18hrs. Unfortunately, the product only used ~20% of the sheets so they wanted the scrap material returned by the m/gram. I didn't get to keep a sample. Also, my blueprints had the entire title blocks and notes physically removed... so I knew who it was for. 🙄

[@BlondeQtie]

The wedding ring idea is so cute :3

[@creativecatproductions]

Amazing

[@rawhamburgerjoe]

Thanks tantalum! For the cell phones!

[@JRM92B]

His « hello everyone » is as iconic as was the « good news everyone » from the professor in Futurama

[@zscorporation]

Good data :D

[@Hebrews-Haggai-]

Good Explaining about those elements of Science chemistry of natural elements we can found here on earth!

[@christopherleubner6633]

One use of tantalum i have used was for thermal evaporation of things for CVD machines. Tungsten can be used also but if you are vaporizing oxides tantalum is the way to go.

[@Kevn357]

good video

[@alwaysskeptical7221]

“Other countries have inferior potassium”, “does this car come with ____ magnet?”

[@jakewestenberger6981]

We’re are you from? I love your accent. Keep up the hard work!

[@editname6868]

To make a protein you need ~a carboxylic acid group (RCOOH) ~an amine (RNH2) ~an arin (RCS) ~a sugar (RCHOCH3) ~and an ether/alcohol Dimethylbitriphospharin5,7dimethylpropyloic6,8glutapropyldicarboxydimethyl5,1glucose

[@unname8486]

Very interesting metal

[@Burnt_Gerbil]

Would you say this metal is..... Tantalizing??

[@sircakington8409]

Burnt Gerbil helium helium helium

[@weewee2169]

probably has the same greek root word for real lol

[@GumWad99]

Burnt Gerbil get out

[@AtlasReburdened]

Etymologically speaking, quite.

[@AntExe-ey5my]

The idea of adding a new band of colour to a wedding ring on ever anniversary is awesome.

[@samanqurbany5241]

great... I suggest to add subtitle and mentioned the ore minerals of any Elements (source).

[@VincentAziz]

Keep it up

[@giostisskylas]

The liners of shaped charge warheads in anti-tank weapons with high penetrating power are made of tantalum in addition to copper.

[@janhavigalgali1460]

Awesome video♥️ Can u plzz make another video on lithium. I Wanna see why lithium batteries blast.

[@flappy7373]

changing the color of your wedding rings every year you're together what a romantic chemist

[@izharfatima5295]

Excellent! So, Where did Kazakhstan obtained Ta?

[@funkyskitchen]

Can the anodizing effect be arranged through a wide range of salts, or does it have to be done in a solution of halogen salts?

[@PLANDerLinde99]

Why do people complain about his accent? I can understand him perfectly fine. And I'm not Russian.

[@gutspraygore]

Oh weird. All this time I had thought the coloring on anodized surfaces involved some type of dye. As usual, the truth is much more interesting.

[@GewelReal]

4:52 He is a robot! Machines are rising! *ALL HAIL TANTALUM*

[@erik61801]

Mr. Thoisoi, I think using tantalum wire for vaping coils would work, what do you think? thanks.

[@Saxie81]

erik61801 but that cost though

[@tennicktenstyl]

Can you anodize Aluminum the same way? It looks amazing

[@merikmalhads1676]

Cleaver use of the oxide layer. Most metal oxide layers are not porous enough to refract light through so I would never have guess you could do that with it Also, thank you for these videos, I have a bachelors of biochemistry but we never really work with the higher elements outside of biological systems so it is always good to have helpful overviews into what we end up missing.

[@youde5241]

He was correct, when he said that the rod turns red when abused. It should be handled by someone with soft and gentle hands.

[@irontoad123]

youll start an anti metal abuse call in line. who do refer an abused rod to.

[@thomasdimarco1167]

Are you going to do thorium anytime soon?

[@randelldarky3920]

I really like Your videos. So where are You from, big guy? I dont want to assume.

[@randelldarky3920]

You can make some nice knife handles out that. Hit it with a couple extra amps to what ever color you want