Key properties and applications
A precious metal with great, innovative potential
The advancement of scientific and technological progress over the last few years has highlighted the strategic role of some specific resources in promoting the great processes of global transformation, be they of an energetic, industrial, or social nature. One of these is undoubtedly niobium, a ductile metal of a shiny grey color, which, over the years, has found numerous uses in the production of special metal alloys and in high-resistance welding.
Its industrial applications are naturally favored by its natural properties: among these, we remember the exceptional hardness and resistance to corrosion, but also its ability to withstand the effect of numerous organic or inorganic acid substances. These characteristics have allowed it to become an ally of great importance in the production of some important alloys, often in combination with other metals, but also of special steels, aluminum alloys, or titanium alloys.
It is precisely these properties that have allowed niobium to be useful in many industrial sectors, even very different ones. The possibility of using it as an additive for high-strength steels has allowed it to enter the energy sector, especially for the construction of oil and gas pipelines, but also in the automotive sector (in particular for the construction of car and truck bodies) and in many other areas, such as naval or railway components and steels used for tools. In general, most niobium is therefore used to produce high-quality structural steel and create nickel-based superalloys.
The role of niobium in innovative applications
Some applications of niobium stand out for their high innovative potential. One of these has to do with the chips of some particular new-generation computers, quantum computers. The superconducting qubits on which some quantum computers are based, in fact, are made with aluminum and niobium, which in turn are found on a silicon substrate. Compared to traditional computers, which use binary digits that can only have one state at a time to solve mathematical operations, quantum bits can have two states at the same time.
But the applications of niobium certainly do not end there: this precious metal is also used to form some special alloys with tantalum, hafnium, zirconium, and titanium, capable of conducting electricity with zero resistance or superconducting. This is a new family of metal alloys that are generally called high entropy alloys, which are distinguished from others by the characteristic of being formed by random mixtures (on atomic scales) of elements belonging to the category of transition metals within the periodic table.
In some cases, the applications of niobium are aimed at studying and analyzing some of the most important forces of nature, such as gravity. Some gravimeters – special devices that measure changes in Earth’s gravity – work by means of a small sphere of niobium metal, which is suspended in a special magnetic field at extremely low temperatures. The gravitational fluctuations of the field contribute to the slight movement of the sphere, giving rise to small alterations in the magnetic field and sending electrical signals to sensors placed nearby. The suspension of this sphere is aided by some peculiar properties of niobium, which at 9.2 K reaches the transition temperature necessary to activate superconductivity. In turn, the magnetic field inside the room where the sphere is located is aided by the coils of niobium wire, which at the same temperature reach superconductivity and do not oppose any resistance to the electric current that passes through them, ensuring a certain stability to the magnetic field.
