Tantalum

Element Tantalum

It is a chemical element with the symbol Ta and atomic number 73.
Previously known as tantalium, its name comes from Tantalus, a villain from Greek mythology. Tantalum is a rare, hard, blue-gray, lustrous transition metal that is highly corrosion-resistant.
Tantalum has been investigated for the treatment and prevention of Osteoarthritis, Knee Osteoarthritis, Intraoperative Bleeding, and Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis.
Its main use today is in tantalum capacitors in electronic equipment such as mobile phones, DVD players, video game systems and computers.
Tantalum, always together with the chemically similar niobium, occurs in the mineral groups tantalite, columbite and coltan (a mix of columbite and tantalite, though not recognised as a separate mineral species). Tantalum is considered a technology-critical element.

Natural tantalum consists of two isotopes: 180mTa (0.012%) and 181Ta (99.988%). 181Ta is a stable isotope. 180mTa (m denotes a metastable state) is predicted to decay in three ways: isomeric transition to the ground state of 180Ta, beta decay to 180W, or electron capture to 180Hf.