Skip to content
Material World
Element · Nb

Niobium

A metal that superconducts usefully, and that spent a century being confused with tantalum.

Niobium and tantalum sit directly above and below one another and are chemically so similar that they were repeatedly mistaken for the same element — hence the names, Niobe being the daughter of Tantalus.

Its modern importance is twofold. Small additions to steel give high-strength low-alloy grades used in pipelines and structural sections, where a stronger steel means less of it. Separately, niobium-titanium is the workhorse superconductor: the magnets in MRI scanners and particle accelerators are wound with it.

Uses

Niobium's largest use is microalloyed steel. Tiny additions — well under a tenth of a per cent — refine the grain and produce steel strong enough that pipelines and structural sections can be made thinner and lighter for the same duty.

Its other major use is superconducting. Niobium-titanium and niobium-tin wire carry the current in MRI magnets and particle accelerator magnets; essentially every superconducting magnet in routine use is wound with a niobium alloy. Niobium is also used in capacitors and in high-temperature superalloys.

Medium confidence Weak evidence

How we know: checked recently · only one source, so there is nothing to cross-check it against · stated directly by the source.

How this connects

Where a connection has been confirmed by an outside reference, that reference is named beside it.

is used as

  • Alloying — application · in high-strength low-alloy steels

is an alternative to

  • Tantalum — element · chemically near-identical and historically confused
  • Vanadium — element · as a microalloying addition to structural steel: a few hundredths of a per cent of either pins the grain size and raises strength, and which is used comes down to price and local practice

is extracted from

  • Columbite — mineral · the principal source, together with tantalum, which the mineral does not separate from it

is produced by

  • Smelting — process · as ferroniobium, reduced aluminothermically from pyrochlore concentrate — the form nearly all niobium is used in

is found in

  • Columbite — mineral · substitutes within a solid solution — an individual specimen may hold little of it

Sources

  • Material World
    Our own writing
  • Wikidata
    Wikimedia Foundation · Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal (public domain dedication)
  • PubChem
    US National Library of Medicine · Mixed — aggregated third-party content, rights retained by depositors
  • NIST — National Institute of Standards and Technology
    United States Department of Commerce · US Government work — public information, credit requested

Questions this page answers

Where it comes from, and what it becomes

Follow Niobium back to what it starts as, and forward into what it becomes. Each step is a documented one — a real route material takes, not a chain of inference.

Upstream — what it comes from

  • Niobium → is produced by (as ferroniobium, reduced aluminothermically from pyrochlore concentrate — the form nearly all niobium is used in) → Smelting → takes as input (as the element removed, not added) → Oxygen → is produced by (the largest output by tonnage, and the reason air separation units sit beside steelworks) → Air separation → takes as input (the feedstock, and an unusual one in being free, unlimited and available anywhere — the cost is entirely the energy to liquefy it) → Air
  • Niobium → is extracted from (the principal source, together with tantalum, which the mineral does not separate from it) → Columbite
  • Niobium → is produced by (as ferroniobium, reduced aluminothermically from pyrochlore concentrate — the form nearly all niobium is used in) → Smelting → takes as input (roasted to drive off sulfur, then reduced to copper) → Chalcopyrite
  • Niobium → is produced by (as ferroniobium, reduced aluminothermically from pyrochlore concentrate — the form nearly all niobium is used in) → Smelting → takes as input (reduced with carbon to metallic tin) → Cassiterite
  • Niobium → is produced by (as ferroniobium, reduced aluminothermically from pyrochlore concentrate — the form nearly all niobium is used in) → Smelting → takes as input (reduced with coke in a blast furnace) → Hematite
  • Niobium → is produced by (as ferroniobium, reduced aluminothermically from pyrochlore concentrate — the form nearly all niobium is used in) → Smelting → takes as input (the phosphate rock charged to the electric furnace, with coke to reduce it and silica to take up the calcium) → Apatite

These are the most distinct paths back. Niobium can be traced through others besides.

Downstream — what it becomes