1801

Niobium

• Charles Hatchett discovered its oxide
• in a sample of columbite at the British Museum
• and called it columbium.
• William Hyde Wollaston compared columbium oxide
• with tantalite and said they were the same
• although they had different densities.
• Heinrich Rose found three elements in tantalite,
• including tantalum (discovered just after columbium),
• and named them after the children of Tantalus:
• niobium and pelopium.
• R. Hermann found a new metal in samarskite
• and called it ilmenium.
• Franz von Kobell found a new metal in tantalite
• and called it dianium.
• Not to be outdone, R. Hermann
• found yet another new metal in tantalite
• and called it neptunium.
• Others—Christian Wilhelm Blomstrand,
• Henri Étienne Sainte-Claire Deville,
• Louis Joseph Troost,
• and Jean Charles Galissard de Marignac—
• showed that niobium was different from tantalum,
• that columbium and dianium were the same as niobium,
• and that ilmenium and pelopium
• were mixtures of the two.
• R. Hermann’s neptumium was probably
• a similar mixture, although by this point
• no one believed anything from R. Hermann.

Atomic number 41

• Microalloyed stainless steels with
• less than a tenth of a percent of niobium
• are nevertheless tougher, stronger,
• more formable, and more weldable.
• *
• The Gemini program used superalloys
• of niobium with iron, nickel, cobalt,
• titanium, molybdenum, and aluminum.
• *
• Niobium alloys with tin or titanium
• are used for superconducting magnets.
• *
• Niobium is used for capacitors
• and mobile phone modulators.

Technical stuff

• Columbite and tantalite
• are orthorhombic;
• tapiolite is tetragonal.
• Pyrochlore is often
• metamict.