Tantalum

Tantalum
Properties
Type	Element
Made With/By	Heavy refinement of coltan ore
Exists in Reality	Yes
Atomic Number	73

Tantalum (tantalium) is a very rare natural metal. The production of tantalum is a long and complex process and it is a very necessary component for capacitors in virtually all electrical related machines in 528 Mode.

Production

Coltan Purifying

Coltan ore drops an item of coltan. The coltan has to be crushed in a shredder for the next step of processing.

Shredder
2

For further refining, crushed coltan and coal powder, as well as hydrogen peroxide and liquid hydrogen are processed in the chemical plant. This produces niobium as a byproduct.

Purified tantalite, fluorite, natural gas and liquid oxygen are then used to produce pandemonium(III)tantalite solution in the chemical plant.

1,000 mB of pandemonium(III)tantalite solution can be combined with 500 mB of hydrogen peroxide to produce a tantalum polycrystal.

Chemical Plant
Details	Recipe
Purified Tantalite Duration: 3.0s Consumption: 2.0kHE/s Total: 6.0kHE	250mB 500mB 2 500mB
Pandemonium III tantalite Solution Duration: 6.0s Consumption: 2.0kHE/s Total: 12.0kHE	1,000mB 500mB 1,000mB
Tantalum Polycrystal Duration: 4.0s Consumption: 2.0kHE/s Total: 8.0kHE	1,000mB 500mB 250mB 3

The polycrystals then can be shredded into powder and smelted to tantalum ingots, or directly melted down in a crucible.

Shredder

Schrabidium Fuel

Tantalum nuggets can also be obtained as a byproduct of depleted schrabidium fuel. On the PUREX:

PUREX
Details	Recipe
Reprocessing of LES Watz Pellet Duration: 3.0s Consumption: 200.0kHE/s Total: 600.0kHE	9 9 2
Reprocessing of MES Watz Pellet Duration: 3.0s Consumption: 200.0kHE/s Total: 600.0kHE	12 6 2
Reprocessing of HES-326 Plate Fuel Duration: 5.0s Consumption: 30.0kHE/s Total: 150.0kHE	6

Schrabidium-326 Nuclear Waste

In a SILEX, schrabidium-326 long-lived nuclear waste must be processed with an infrared crystal or higher, this will yield a small quantity of tantalum.

Laser Isotope Separation Chamber (SILEX)
9.0x 20.0% 18.0% 15.0% 8.0% 8.0% 31.0%
9.0x 25.0% 18.0% 16.0% 8.0% 8.0% 25.0%

Usage

The most significant use of tantalum is in tantalum capacitors, which are a crucial component of control units used within nuclear bombs; advanced control units used in the production of quantum computers; and capacitor boards, an important part of 528 Mode.

Gallery

Coltan
Crushed coltan
Purified tantalite
Polycrystal
Ingot
Nugget

Trivia

Tantalum processing is meant to reflect real life processing, which is also difficult.
- Niobium is given because it's often a part of the same ores/minerals that tantalum is, it itself will also become useful later on, necessitating an easier method of production compared to the cyclotron.
A lot of dust is produced as a byproduct of coltan/tantalum refinement, which requires disposal or usage of it.
The material was originally called tantalium as part of Bob's war against the English language, particularly its inconsistent naming of elements. "Tantalum" is notable because it used to be named "tantalium", which is more consistent with the other elements. This was changed in version 1.0.27_X5546 for consistency with the crucible material.
- Lanthanium is another example in NTM.

External Links

Tantalum at Wikipedia