More than 60 percent of the world's tantalum, a high performance metal, is used in electronics products. The largest application is electronic capacitors, where tantalum's ability to form stable oxide films creates highly efficient, highly reliable and environmentally versatile components.

In semiconductors, tantalum has emerged as an ideal barrier solution, since copper is replacing aluminum as the material of choice for interconnects.

Strength, ductility, toughness, corrosion resistance, thermal conductivity and high melting point make tantalum important in chemical and pharmaceutical processing, aerospace, energy and ballistic applications.

Tantalum is also used as alloy in turbine blades, in power turbines and jet engines, where it brings structural integrity at higher temperatures, increasing fuel efficiency.

Some four million pounds of tantalum are consumed annually in the form of metal powder and wire, ingot, fabricated forms, compounds and alloys. Cabot Supermetals is one of just a few fully integrated producers of tantalum products in the world, with two ISO certified manufacturing facilities in the United States and Japan.