Hello everyone
Today I will tell you about the metal that can replace Gold
about Niobium
In the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements
Niobium is placed in the 5th group
between Vanadium and Tantalum
It got its name in the honor of Niobe, the daughter of the ancient Greek King Tantalus
And this is not a coincidence
because the properties of Niobium and Tantalum are very similar
and at first sight they are quite hard to distinguish
Niobium is mined from the mineral Columbite
where Tantalum is also present
Because of that, until 1949 in the US Niobium was also called Columbium
as in the 19th century American scientists sometimes considered Tantalum and Niobium the same element
Now, when obtaining Niobium from ore, it's purified from Tantalum and other metals
and so pure Niobium Pentoxide is acquired
which is then consequently dissolved in Hydrofluoric acid
thereby obtaining complex Niobium compounds, which are then reduced by metallic Sodium
to metallic state
After such a process, what is obtained is high purity Niobium
If you compare its appearance with Tantalum then you can immediately see the difference
in that Tantalum has a more shiny surface, though it might be just the way they produce these rods
Also Niobium is about three times cheaper than Tantalum
Due to its high plasticity, it's easy to make a Niobium foil
which is much harder to distinguish from the foil of Tantalum
although there is one way
As the density of Niobium is almost two times less than that of Tantalum
therefore these metals can be easily distinguished
by means of scales
Also, the melting temperature point of Niobium is 250°C less than that of Tantalum
meaning that my gas torch will never melt this Niobium rod
The only thing that the burning managed to achieve
is it slightly oxidized the surface of the metal
since, with strong heating Niobium can react with Oxygen in the air
forming Nb₂O₅
Due to its high melting point and relative chemical resistance
one of the first commercial applications it had was as a filament in old bulbs
but later on it was replaced with Tungsten
In dilute acids Niobium does not dissolve at all
However, under the influence of electricity
this metal behaves more interestingly
Like Tantalum, Niobium can be easily anodized
in other words, its surface can be colored in many ways
by controlling the thickness of the oxide film on the surface of the metal
This is what I indeed decided to do, using my new voltage converter
which from 30 Volts makes an adjustable DC voltage up to 120 Volts
and even has a screen for convenience
In my opinion this is a very convenient solution
as commercial anodizing devices cost around $200
Similar to how I did this with Tantalum
I first decided to anodize Niobium in a solution of table salt
of about 10% concentration
I connected Niobium to the anode, that is to the positive of the current source
and as the cathode I used a Tantalum anodized plate
Though, when anodizing in a solution of table salt Niobium behaved quite badly
First a brown oxide film appeared, but beyond that nothing interesting happened
When the voltage increased, the metal simply began to dissolve
Apparently the Chloride ions, for Niobium, are much more aggressive than for Tantalum
I started to think that maybe I accidentally broke my source of current
It doesn't seem so
It works just fine
Then I realized it is most probably a matter of choosing the electrolyte
and went for answers to the almighty internet
And guess what I found?
A bunch of links to online shops for buying kits to anodize Tantalum and Niobium
And just one American forum
when one of the users mentions soda and Sodium Tetraborate
Though on YouTube of course, there are a lot of videos where a man takes a powder called TSP...
TSP-PF
If you decipher TSP, it means Triphosphate
though, the packaging mentions that it has no phosphates
Wat is happening?
As a result, this substance remains foolishly incredible
Commerce in all its glory!
Okay, I thought, maybe there are some scientific articles on this topic
Of course there is
even a fresh one by Japanese
year 216
But, as always, cunning business people demand a coin for science
The article has a price tag
After several unsuccessful attempts, I finally made a more or less working electrolyte
which is a solution of Sodium Tetraborate, or simply "Borax"
Concentration here is about 2 grams per 100 milliliters
Apart from Borax, solution of an ordinary soda is also suitable
By the way, while I was experimenting with different electrolytes, I found one interesting effe ct
In the solution of Sodium Phosphate
at a voltage of 110 Volts the Niobium plate began to be wildly proto-anodized
with a spark discharge
Sparks ran on the surface of the metal
leaving behind a gray trace of oxidized metal
It looks very fascinating
Eventually, after a series of failures, Niobium succumbed and began to shine in different colors
depending on the voltage applied
And the higher it was, the more interesting the colors became
This footage shows how the colors of anodized Niobium vary with different voltage
When the voltage reaches 120 Volts, we get a beautiful light green color
It is also interesting
that the color of anodized Niobium depends on the lighting
because the film covering the metal is very thin
The color change happens due to the different thickness of the Niobium Oxide film on the surface of the metal
and the color we see is based on the [interference of] applied light reflected from the metal
and light that has passed through the oxide layer
As a result, I have obtained several pieces of colored Niobium
But this seemed to be as not enough
So I decided to do something more beautiful and worthwhile
I printed a vector DNA model on a printer
made it embossed with the help of a good old hammer, and cut it out
As a result, I now have a Niobium billet
which can be given almost any color
I decided to make it blue
The voltage here is about 35 Volts
After that, I pulled it out of the solution, took a brush and soaked it with Borax solution
and began to paint with it on the metal
I can tell you that it looks very fascinating
The only problem here is that when the voltage is high the electrolyte boils
and the patterns may not turn out to be clear
As the result, I have come out of this with a beautiful trinket from Niobium
In my opinion, as first attempt
it's not so bad
However, it doesn't really look like Gold here
so I made another one and anodized it to the gold color
at voltage of 60 Volts
After that I increased the voltage to 95 Volts and made some beautiful blue dots
The second trinket looked much more presentable than the first one
I think that if you don't have money for the expensive Gold or diamonds
you can safely use anodized Niobium or Tantalum
it depends of your taste
In the Year 2003 Austria even issued commemorative coins of €25
the core of which consisted of anodized Niobium
They liked this unusual color of the metal
However, nowadays, in addition to those aesthetic applications
Niobium in its pure form is almost often used to create super-powerful magnetic fields
since at 9.2 Kelvin pure Niobium acquires the properties of a superconductor
that is, it loses absolutely all internal resistance
If we cool Niobium with liquid Helium then it actually becomes a superconductor
Because of this, this metal was the first of the metals that was used as a high-temperature superconductor
Such properties of Niobium are now used in MRI scanners
and for the cooling of quantum computers
The Large Hadron Collider uses about 600 tonnes of Niobium and Tin alloy cables
and in the future they plan to install superconducting radio-frequency resonators from pure Niobium
However, still 90% of Niobium produced at the moment goes into the production of super-alloys
which have some unique mechanical properties
and are resistant to deformation and corrosion under strong heating
Such alloys are used in cosmonautics
for the production of rocket engine nozzles
and in jet engine designs
In the end we can say that Niobium is a very useful and amazing metal
capable of easily disguising itself as Gold
so that you cannot tell
as well as participating in scientific discoveries in the Hadron Collider
For the provided Niobium for the experiments, I will thank the company
SAmaterials.com
I will put a link to their site in the video description
=^.^=