Tantalum is a very expensive, high-temperature alloy that you won’t find on a normal junk pick-up week. It is a high-strength and high-capacitance alloy that’s great for electronic devices. You will often find tantalum used as capacitors in high-temperature engines, chemical processing, as well as aerospace, and other nuclear power plant projects. It is also a very heavy material similar to lead. The picture to the right is about 8 inches wide by 1 inch thick and weighs over 30 pounds.
Tantalum has been valued from $40-200 per lb. over the last 10 or so years, but don’t get your hopes up too quickly as it is very hard to find. Most of the applications that tantalum would be used for are not common everyday scrapping items, and it will be rare to find it.
How do you know tantalum when you do find it? Bring it to your local scrap yard and ask if they have a metal analyzer (XRF), and they can let you know whether or not you have tantalum.
Scrap ya Later!!!
-Tom
