Tantalum

Tantalum, 73Ta
Tantalum
Pronunciation/ˈtæntələm/ ​(TAN-təl-əm)
Appearancegray blue
Standard atomic weight Ar°(Ta)
Tantalum in the periodic table
Hydrogen Helium
Lithium Beryllium Boron Carbon Nitrogen Oxygen Fluorine Neon
Sodium Magnesium Aluminium Silicon Phosphorus Sulfur Chlorine Argon
Potassium Calcium Scandium Titanium Vanadium Chromium Manganese Iron Cobalt Nickel Copper Zinc Gallium Germanium Arsenic Selenium Bromine Krypton
Rubidium Strontium Yttrium Zirconium Niobium Molybdenum Technetium Ruthenium Rhodium Palladium Silver Cadmium Indium Tin Antimony Tellurium Iodine Xenon
Caesium Barium Lanthanum Cerium Praseodymium Neodymium Promethium Samarium Europium Gadolinium Terbium Dysprosium Holmium Erbium Thulium Ytterbium Lutetium Hafnium Tantalum Tungsten Rhenium Osmium Iridium Platinum Gold Mercury (element) Thallium Lead Bismuth Polonium Astatine Radon
Francium Radium Actinium Thorium Protactinium Uranium Neptunium Plutonium Americium Curium Berkelium Californium Einsteinium Fermium Mendelevium Nobelium Lawrencium Rutherfordium Dubnium Seaborgium Bohrium Hassium Meitnerium Darmstadtium Roentgenium Copernicium Nihonium Flerovium Moscovium Livermorium Tennessine Oganesson
Nb
↑
Ta
↓
Db
hafnium ← tantalum → tungsten
Atomic number (Z)73
Groupgroup 5
Periodperiod 6
Block  d-block
Electron configuration[Xe] 4f14 5d3 6s2
Electrons per shell2, 8, 18, 32, 11, 2
Physical properties
Phase at STPsolid
Melting point3290 K ​(3017 °C, ​5463 °F)
Boiling point5731 K ​(5458 °C, ​9856 °F)
Density (at 20° C)16.678 g/cm3 [3]
when liquid (at m.p.)15 g/cm3
Heat of fusion36.57 kJ/mol
Heat of vaporization753 kJ/mol
Molar heat capacity25.36 J/(mol·K)
Vapor pressure
P (Pa) 1 10 100 1 k 10 k 100 k
at T (K) 3297 3597 3957 4395 4939 5634
Atomic properties
Oxidation statescommon: +5
−3,? −1,[4] 0,? +1,? +2,[4] +3,[4] +4[4]
ElectronegativityPauling scale: 1.5
Ionization energies
  • 1st: 761 kJ/mol
  • 2nd: 1500 kJ/mol
Atomic radiusempirical: 146 pm
Covalent radius170±8 pm
Color lines in a spectral range
Spectral lines of tantalum
Other properties
Natural occurrenceprimordial
Crystal structure ​body-centered cubic (bcc)[3] (cI2)
Lattice constant
Body-centered cubic crystal structure for tantalum
a = 330.29 pm (at 20 °C)[3]
Thermal expansion6.3 µm/(m⋅K) (at 25 °C)
Thermal conductivity57.5 W/(m⋅K)
Electrical resistivity131 nΩ⋅m (at 20 °C)
Magnetic orderingparamagnetic[5]
Molar magnetic susceptibility+154.0×10−6 cm3/mol (293 K)[6]
Young's modulus186 GPa
Shear modulus69 GPa
Bulk modulus200 GPa
Speed of sound thin rod3400 m/s (at 20 °C)
Poisson ratio0.34
Mohs hardness6.5
Vickers hardness870–1200 MPa
Brinell hardness440–3430 MPa
CAS Number7440-25-7
History
DiscoveryAnders Gustaf Ekeberg (1802)
Recognized as a distinct element byHeinrich Rose (1844)
Isotopes of tantalum
Main isotopes[7] Decay
abun­dance half-life (t1/2) mode pro­duct
177Ta synth 56.56 h β+ 177Hf
178Ta synth 2.36 h β+ 178Hf
179Ta synth 1.82 y ε 179Hf
180Ta synth 8.125 h ε 180Hf
β− 180W
180mTa 0.0120% stable
181Ta 99.988%
Preview warning: Infobox Ta isotopes: Abundance percentage not recognised "na=99.988%" cat#%
 stable
182Ta synth 114.43 d β− 182W
183Ta synth 5.1 d β− 183W
 Category: Tantalum
| references

Tantalum is a chemical element; it has symbol Ta and atomic number 73. Previously known as tantalium,[citation needed] it is named after Tantalus, a figure in Greek mythology.[8] Tantalum is a very hard, ductile, lustrous, blue-gray transition metal that is highly corrosion-resistant. It is part of the refractory metals group, which are widely used as components of strong high-melting-point alloys. It is a group 5 element, along with vanadium and niobium, and it always occurs in geologic sources together with the chemically similar niobium, mainly in the mineral groups tantalite, columbite and coltan.

The chemical inertness and very high melting point of tantalum make it valuable for laboratory and industrial equipment such as reaction vessels and vacuum furnaces. It is used in tantalum capacitors for electronic equipment such as computers.[9] It is being investigated for use as a material for high-quality superconducting resonators in quantum processors.[10][11] Tantalum is considered a technology-critical element by the European Commission.[12]

  1. ^ "Standard Atomic Weights: Tantalum". CIAAW. 2005.
  2. ^ Prohaska, Thomas; Irrgeher, Johanna; Benefield, Jacqueline; Böhlke, John K.; Chesson, Lesley A.; Coplen, Tyler B.; Ding, Tiping; Dunn, Philip J. H.; Gröning, Manfred; Holden, Norman E.; Meijer, Harro A. J. (2022-05-04). "Standard atomic weights of the elements 2021 (IUPAC Technical Report)". Pure and Applied Chemistry. doi:10.1515/pac-2019-0603. ISSN 1365-3075.
  3. ^ a b c Arblaster, John W. (2018). Selected Values of the Crystallographic Properties of Elements. Materials Park, Ohio: ASM International. ISBN 978-1-62708-155-9.
  4. ^ a b c d Greenwood, Norman N.; Earnshaw, Alan (1997). Chemistry of the Elements (2nd ed.). Butterworth-Heinemann. p. 28. ISBN 978-0-08-037941-8.
  5. ^ Lide, D. R., ed. (2005). "Magnetic susceptibility of the elements and inorganic compounds". CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics (PDF) (86th ed.). Boca Raton (FL): CRC Press. ISBN 0-8493-0486-5.
  6. ^ Weast, Robert (1984). CRC, Handbook of Chemistry and Physics. Boca Raton, Florida: Chemical Rubber Company Publishing. pp. E110. ISBN 0-8493-0464-4.
  7. ^ Kondev, F. G.; Wang, M.; Huang, W. J.; Naimi, S.; Audi, G. (2021). "The NUBASE2020 evaluation of nuclear properties" (PDF). Chinese Physics C. 45 (3): 030001. doi:10.1088/1674-1137/abddae.
  8. ^ Euripides, Orestes
  9. ^ "Tantalum (Ta) | AMERICAN ELEMENTS ®". American Elements: The Materials Science Company. Retrieved 2024-08-23.
  10. ^ McLellan, R.A. (2023). "Chemical profiles of the oxides on tantalum in state of the art superconducting circuits". Advanced Science. 10 (21): e2300921. arXiv:2301.04567. doi:10.1002/advs.202300921. PMC 10375100. PMID 37166044.
  11. ^ Crowley, Kevin D.; McLellan, Russell A.; Dutta, Aveek; Shumiya, Nana; Place, Alexander P. M.; Le, Xuan Hoang; Gang, Youqi; Madhavan, Trisha; Bland, Matthew P.; Chang, Ray; Khedkar, Nishaad; Feng, Yiming Cady; Umbarkar, Esha A.; Gui, Xin; Rodgers, Lila V. H.; Jia, Yichen; Feldman, Mayer M.; Lyon, Stephen A.; Liu, Mingzhao; Cava, Robert J.; Houck, Andrew A.; de Leon, Nathalie P. (2023-10-06). "Disentangling Losses in Tantalum Superconducting Circuits". Physical Review X. 13 (4): 041005. arXiv:2301.07848. Bibcode:2023PhRvX..13d1005C. doi:10.1103/PhysRevX.13.041005.
  12. ^ "European Commission (2010). Critical Raw Materials for the EU. Report of the Ad-hoc Working Group on Defining Critical Raw Materials". European Commission. Apr 29, 2015.