The Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Qinghai Provincial Geological Survey recently announced a major discovery - the Dagrad niobium deposit. This deposit is a niobium-rare earth ore symbiotic with alkaline rocks \u2012 carbonate rock complexes. This discovery not only demonstrates the outstanding strength of the mainland's geological sciences, but also provides an opportunity to break through the bottleneck of "difficult extraction and utilization" of the existing niobium resources in the mainland, and also gives us a deeper understanding of a magical transition metal element - niobium.
What is little known is that the discovery of niobium has gone through more than 150 years, and now it is widely used in superconductors, superalloys, improving steel properties, nuclear industry, etc., and is a veritable point "niobium" into gold.
PART.01
The coltan controversy for half a century
"This guy is too stubborn, he has been restored more than ten times, and he still can't get the elemental!"
One day in the early autumn of 1801 A.D., in the laboratory of a school on the outskirts of London, England. Chemist Charles Hatchett has a headache when faced with the black cubic crystals in the reagent bottle. These crystals are unknown metal oxides, ores from museums.
A week ago, when Hatchett visited the British Museum, he was intrigued by the fine minerals with black gold stripes in the display cases. According to the curator, it was donated to the museum by the grandson of the governor of Connecticut. Hatchett, who is dedicated to ore research, asked for some samples and brought them back to the school's lab for chemical analysis. After many experiments, he isolated more than 10 kinds of elements such as manganese and iron, and obtained black metal oxides.
Hatchett tried various methods, but was unsuccessful in reducing unknown metal oxides to elemental matter. He carefully compared this substance with all the metal oxides known at the time, and was surprised to find that none of them matched it.
After countless trials and verifications, Hatchett finally confirmed that this unknown metal oxide contained a completely new element. In honor of Columbus, the discoverer of the American continent, he named the new element Columbium, or Cb for short. A few years later, Western learning spread eastward, and scientists in the late Qing Dynasty translated this metal as "colum".
Portrait of Charles Hatchett
The beginning of the 19th century was the era of the explosion of science in the West, and scientists spared no effort to discover the elements.
In the second year of Hatchett's discovery of coltan, the Swedish chemist Ekberg published a paper claiming that he had isolated a new metal element from the ore obtained from Finland, and because of its particularly strong corrosion resistance, it was named Tantalum after the hero Tantalus of Greek mythology.
After comparing the papers of Hatchett and Exberg, the scientific community found that the properties of coltan and tantalum are strikingly similar. This has sparked a heated debate among chemists about whether coltan and tantalum are the same metal, and opinions are deeply divided.
In the decades that followed, it was reported from time to time that new elements with properties similar to coltan and tantalum were discovered and given various new names. However, after subsequent careful examination, these so-called "new elements" were finally confirmed to be either coltan or tantalum.
In 1844, the German chemist Ross conducted an in-depth study of an ore from Podon Mais and succeeded in isolating two elements with similar chemical properties from it. After careful identification, Ross confirmed that one of them was a known element of tantalum, while the other was a completely new element.
To commemorate the discovery, Ross named it Niobium, or "Nb" for short, which translates to "niobium" in Chinese, and the root of the name is derived from the name of Niobe, the daughter of Tantalus, implying that this new element is as precious and unique as mythology.
Niobium metal
The question of whether "niobium" and "columbia" are the same element was not clearly answered at the time. In the decades that followed, Western scientists were immersed in in-depth explorations of coltan, tantalum, and niobium, as well as efforts to reduce niobium oxides. This series of explorations and controversies made the scientific community at that time very lively, and various opinions and experiments emerged one after another.
PART.02
Purification naming for 100 years
Since Ross discovered and named the new element niobium, the first breakthrough was made by Swiss scientist Malinak.
In 1866, after trial and error, Malinak invented the "step-by-step crystallization method" to effectively separate tantalum and niobium. The specific operation steps of this method are as follows: first, the oxides containing tantalum and niobium are chemically reacted with fluoride to obtain tantalum fluoride and niobium fluoride, and then the tantalum and niobium fluoride are respectively introduced into hydrogen fluoride to obtain the elemental tantalum with high density and the elemental niobium with low density.
Malinak further compared elemental niobium with the previously prepared collum, and analyzed it in depth in terms of both physical and chemical properties, and was surprised to find that they were actually the same element.
He was thoughtful in naming it, and since Tantalus, the Latin name for tantalum derives from the mythical son of Zeus, Tantalus, he thought it would be more logical and culturally appropriate to name the new element, Niobium, after Niobi, the daughter of Tantalus.
Malinak's naming proposal, while supported by the European scientific community, was firmly opposed by the American scientific community. There are two reasons: one is that "Columbia" was named early, and the name should be named; the other is that "Columbia" is mainly to commemorate Columbus, as the first person to discover the American continent, Columbus has always been respected by Americans.
Both sides insist on their own words and do their own thing. In communications and official documents, the Europeans were firmly on the side of the "niobium", while the Americans held the position of the "columium".
This situation lasted for almost a century, until 1949, when the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) convened a meeting and ruled that element 41 in the periodic table was officially called "niobium", while "collum" was retained as the old name. This long-pending controversy has finally come to an end.
PART.03
It has a wide range of uses
Like the discovery and naming of niobium, the use of niobium has gone through a relatively long process.
At the beginning of the 20th century, niobium made its debut in the manufacture of incandescent lamps, but this brief attempt was soon replaced by tungsten, which had a higher melting point, as tungsten was more suitable for the manufacture of incandescent lamps. More than 20 years later, niobium is once again in the spotlight for its unique properties to strengthen steel, which in turn has led to its widespread use in the steel sector. More than 20 years later, the application of tantalum and niobium superalloys has made remarkable progress.
After entering the new century, niobium is like a shining golden key, opening the door to progress. With the physical and chemical properties of niobium metal being further studied, such as high temperature resistance, corrosion resistance, excellent electrical conductivity and so on. It has been widely used in aerospace, superconducting materials and many other fields, creating unimaginable value for the world.
Niobium is widely used in the industrial field and is known as "industrial monosodium glutamate". Due to its high strength, high melting point, corrosion resistance and other characteristics, niobium and its compounds play an important role in many fields such as steel, alloys, ceramics, electronics, etc.
Adding a small amount of niobium to steel can significantly improve the strength and corrosion resistance of steel, which is most widely used in automobiles, adding niobium to alloys can improve the high temperature resistance of alloys, and niobium compounds also play an irreplaceable role in ceramics and electronics.
Auto parts are more powerful because of the addition of niobium Source: China Mining Network
What's even more amazing is that niobium can even play a magical effect of "turning a point into gold" in some special circumstances. In the fields of superconducting materials and catalysts, the addition of niobium can significantly improve the performance of materials and achieve some seemingly impossible technological breakthroughs.
For example, in superconducting materials, the addition of niobium can increase the critical temperature of superconductors, enabling superconductivity technology to be applied at higher temperatures, and in the field of catalysts, niobium compounds can be used as efficient catalysts to promote chemical reactions and improve production efficiency.
In the future development of science and technology, the discovery and naming of niobium, which has lasted for more than 150 years, will continue to play an irreplaceable role and contribute more to the progress of human society.
Bibliography:
1. "The History of Niobium as a Microalloyed Element," Opening Remarks at the 2001 International Conference on Global Niobium, by Lutz Meyer
2. Research on Exploration, Development and Investment of Global Niobium Ore Resources, by Liu Fei, China Mining, 2013.07
3. Application and Development of Niobium, Wang Yongyue, Ningxia Science and Technology, 1997, 04
Author: Wei Deyong, a member of the Shenzhen Writers Association of Guangdong