History of Niobium Plating

The discovery of niobium was not a smooth one, due in large part to its similarity to and simultaneous appearance with tantalum.

The element was first discovered in 1801 by the British scientist Charles Hatchett. He found it in the Hans Sloan collection of American ores in the British Museum, and more than 100 years ago, the first governor of Connecticut, John Winthrop the Younger, shipped the ore to England.

Hatchett named the element columbium, with the chemical symbol Cb, in recognition of its country of origin, the United States. Columbia is another name for the United States.

In 1844, a German chemist named Heinrich Roth discovered what he thought was a new element. However, it was the same as what Hachette had discovered decades earlier.

Ross found it next to tantalum and named it niobium after Niobe, a character in Greek mythology who was the daughter of the Greek mythological hero Tantalus, from whom tantalum got its name.

In 1864, a Swedish scientist named Christian Blomstrand became the first to isolate the metal. He did this by heating it in an atmosphere of hydrogen, thereby reducing the chloride.

After much debate, the scientific community concluded that columbium and niobium were the same element. For about 100 years, the element was known as columbium in the U.S. and niobium in Europe, and in 1949, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry agreed to adopt the name niobium internationally. As a compromise, tungsten became the official name for element 74, instead of tungsten, although it still has the chemical symbol W. The term columbium has been used in some places during the agreement, such as the U.S. metallurgical industry.