NIOBIUM WIRE AND ROD

Niobium rod is worked cold from ingot to final diameter. Forging, rolling, swaging, and drawing are used singularly or in combination to reach the desired size.

The metal is used in arc welding rods for some stabilized grades of stainless steel and is also used as a material in anodes for cathodic protection systems.

Superconductive wire can be made from an alloy of niobium and titanium which can then be used to make superconductive magnets.

Niobium (Nb), previously known as columbium, is a chemical element with the atomic number 41. It’s primarily a malleable, grey, supple transition metal. Niobium’s main commercial source is from the pyrochlore mineral. The origin of the name is from Greek mythology; or Niobe, the daughter of Tantalus.

Niobium and tantalum have similar physical and chemical properties, making the two difficult to distinguish. Charles Hatchett, an English chemist, reported a new element similar to tantalum in 1801 and named it columbium. In 1809, another English chemist, William Hyde Wollaston, incorrectly concluded that tantalum and columbium were identical. But, in 1846, German chemist, Heinrich Rose, concluded that the tantalum samples contained a second element, which he termed niobium. In the following few years, a series of scientific findings concluded that niobium and columbium were the same element (as distinguished from tantalum), and for a long period of time both terms were used interchangeably. Niobium was officially adopted as the name of the element in 1949, but the name columbium hangs on in current use in metallurgy in the United States.