History Of The Discovery Of Niobium

While examining the ores in the British Museum in 1801, Charles Hatchett was intrigued by a sample labeled columbite. He hypothesized that it contained a new metal, and he was right. He heated a piece of the sample with potassium carbonate, dissolved the product into water, and after adding acid obtained a precipitate. However, further treatment also failed to produce the element itself, which he named columbium (coltan - an old translation of the element niobium), known for many years.
Others were skeptical of columbium, especially after the discovery of tantalum the following year. These metals occur together in nature and are difficult to separate. In 1844 the German chemist Heinrich Rose proved that columbite contained both elements, and he named columbium (coltan) after niobium (niobium). "Columbium" (columbium, symbol Cb) was the earliest name given by Hatchett to a new element. The name has been widely used in the United States, where the American Chemical Society published the last paper with "columbium" in the title in 1953; "niobium" was used in Europe, and the 15th ICC meeting in Amsterdam in 1949 finally decided to use "niobium". At the 15th ICC meeting in Amsterdam in 1949, it was finally decided that "niobium" would be the official name of element 41. The following year, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) also adopted this designation, ending a century of naming disagreements, even though "columbium" had been used earlier. This was a compromise: IUPAC chose "Tungsten" over the European "Wolfram" for tungsten, in accordance with North American usage, and gave precedence to European usage for niobium. Authoritative chemical societies and government agencies generally use IUPAC as the official name, but the U.S. Geological Survey, as well as organizations such as the Metallurgical Institute and the Institute of Metals, still use the old name "columbium".

At the time, scientists were unable to effectively distinguish columbium (niobium) from tantalum, which is very similar in nature. 1809, British chemist William Hyde Wollaston compared columbium and tantalum oxides, and found that the densities of the two were 5.918 g/cm3 and more than 16.6 g/cm3, respectively; despite the huge difference in density values, he still considered them to be identical. he still considered them to be identical substances. Another German chemist, Heinrich Rose, refuted this conclusion in 1846, claiming that two other elements were present in the original tantalite sample. He named them "Niobium" after Tantalus' daughter Niobe, the goddess of tears, and his son Pelops, after the Greek myths of "Niobium" (niobium) and "Pelopium". The difference between tantalum and niobium was subtle, and the resulting new "elements" Pelopium, Ilmenium and Dianium were actually just niobium or niobium-tantalum mixtures.
In 1864, Christian Wilhelm Blomstrand, Henri Edin St. Clair de Ville and Louis Joseph Troost definitively proved that tantalum and niobium were two different chemical elements and determined the chemical formulae for some of the related compounds. Swiss chemist Jean Charles Galissard de Marignac further proved in 1866 that there were no other elements than Tantalum and Niobium. However, it was not until 1871 that scientists published articles on Ilmenium.
In 1864, de Marignac made the first niobium metal by reducing niobium chloride in hydrogen gas. Although he was able to prepare niobium metal without tantalum in 1866, it was not until the beginning of the 20th century that niobium began to be used commercially: in the filaments of electric light bulbs. Niobium was soon phased out by tungsten, which had a higher melting point than niobium and was better suited for lamp filaments, and in the 1920s it was discovered that niobium could be used to strengthen steel, which has long been its main use. Eugene Kunzler of Bell Labs and others discovered that niobium-tin remained superconducting under strong electric and magnetic fields, which made it the first substance that could withstand high currents and magnetic fields, and could be used in high-powered magnets and electric machines. This discovery led to the production of multi-strand long cables 20 years later. These cables, when wound into coils, formed large, powerful electromagnets used in rotating machines, particle gas pedals and particle detectors.
A pure sample of the metal was produced in 1864 by Christian Blomstrand, who realized the reduction of niobium chloride by heating it with hydrogen.