Resilience in the tantalum supply chain

Abstract

A B S T R A C TTantalum, considered one of the critical elements by many countries, is a widely used metal in industries such as electronics, aerospace and automotive. The tantalum market has experienced several disruptions and subsequent price swings in the past, implying problems with its supply chain resilience and stability. In this study, we trace the entire value chain of the tantalum industry from mining to the intermediate and the downstream industries. Our interest is to see how dependent the tantalum supply chain is on specific countries and regions, how exposed primary production is to disruptions, and what mechanism counteracts disruption. This study assesses the tantalum supply chain from a resilience perspective rather than an investigation of any specific disruption in the system. We analyze several resilience-promoting mechanisms such as: (a) diversity of supply, (b) material substitution, (c) recycling and (d) stockpiling. We evaluate each of these mechanisms, and find that even though diversity of supply and stockpiling mechanisms have been decreasing for years, the tantalum supply chain has been flexible in its response to disruption. We find a much larger supply from unaccounted artisanal and small mining sources than expected based on official statistics, and estimate the unaccounted production in Africa, which shows an almost 250 percent increase from around 600 tons in 2004 to more than 2000 tons in 2014.. Besides flexible primary production from small-scale mining, we identfy rapid material substitution and increasing availability of waste and scrap as the main reasons behind the observed supply chain resilience.

Tantalum(v) 1,3-propanediolate β-diketonate solution as a precursor to sol–gel derived, metal oxide thin films

“…3 Aside from applications in orthopedic implants, 4 tantalum and its sister niobium form oxides which have a variety of uses, including capacitors, 5 batteries, 6,7 electrochromic windows, 8 pH and conductivity sensors, [9][10][11][12][13] surface plasmon resonance sensors, [14][15][16] ferroelectric memory devices, [17][18][19][20] corrosion resistant coatings, 21 and even gravity wave detectors. 22 During manufacturing of such devices, production inefficiencies and waste material lead to the addition of a recycling step, 23 thereby complicating the fabrication of products containing tantalum. Efforts to deposit such oxides via additive processes at relatively low temperatures, which would save material and energy, [24][25][26] still remain a challenge.…”

Primates in peril: the significance of Brazil, Madagascar, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo for global primate conservation

“…Importing nations process the raw materials and the final product is commercialized for local and global consumption. A particulary unfortunate example of this is the growing global demand for products produced by industrialized nations such as cell phones, laptops, and other electronic devices using conflict minerals such as coltan, mined in DRC ( Hayes & Burge, 2003 ; Mancheri et al, 2018 ; Spira et al, 2017 ). To balance global market demands with the needs of the four primate-rich countries to develop their internal economies, ensure food security, and improve the standard of living for their expanding human populations, the “greening” of trade can promote environmental protection ( Neumayer, 2001 ; Henders et al, 2018 ).…”

Toward a dynamic evaluation of mineral criticality: Introducing the framework of criticality systems

“…While it promotes understandings about substitutions in the context of criticality, other criticality aspects were not considered. In addition, none of these studies (Knoeri et al., ; Mancheri et al., ; Smith & Eggert, ; Sprecher et al., ) statistically validated the relationship between the indicators used and the dynamics of the mineral's market system and industrial ecology.…”

“…Mancheri et al. () used a similar methodology to analyze tantalum. However, this methodology also has some limitations: it solely focuses on the supply‐side criticality ignoring the minerals’ importance and the end users’ vulnerability; and it did not demonstrate how to compare the resistance, rapidity, and flexibility of two minerals quantitatively, which is fundamental for differentiating the degrees of criticality.…”