Coltan is the colloquial African name for columbite-tantalite, a metallic ore used to produce the elements niobium and tantalum. Mineral concentrates containing tantalum are usually referred to as 'tantalite' [1]. In appearance, coltan is a dull black mineral. The exportation of coltan helped fuel the war in the Congo, a conflict that has resulted in approximately 3.8 million deaths [2]. Coltan is the ore for tantalum used in consumer electronics products such as cell phones, DVD players, computers, and games consoles. A world map showing the continent of Africa Africa is the worlds second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. ... Ferrocolumbite, also called niobite, columbate and columbite [(Fe, Mn)(Nb, Ta)2O6] is a black mineral that is an ore of niobium and tantalum. ... Tantalite, [(Fe, Mn) Ta2O6], is a mineral that is close to columbite. ... General Name, Symbol, Number niobium, Nb, 41 Chemical series transition metals Group, Period, Block 5, 5, d Appearance gray metallic Standard atomic weight 92. ... General Name, Symbol, Number tantalum, Ta, 73 Chemical series transition metals Group, Period, Block 5, 6, d Appearance gray blue Standard atomic weight 180. ... Several mobile phones A mobile telephone or cellular telephone (commonly, mobile phone or cell phone) is a long-range, portable electronic device used for mobile communication. ... The inside of a DVD player A DVD player is a device not only playing discs produced under the DVD Video standard but also playing discs under the standard of DVD Audio. ... The Altair 8800 was among the first microcomputers to be affordable by an individual, although it initially lacked peripherals and memory. ... A video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or electronic device that manipulates the video display signal of a display device (a television, monitor, etc. ...

Production and supply

The main production of tantalum occurs in Australia [3], where the largest producer, Sons of Gwalia, operates two mines. Tantalum minerals are also mined in Canada, Brazil, China and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (80% of the world known reserves). Tantalum is also produced in Thailand and Malaysia as a by-product of tin mining and smelting. Sons of Gwalia is a Western Australian mining company who mine Tantalum, Spodumene, Lithium and Tin. ... General Name, Symbol, Number tin, Sn, 50 Chemical series poor metals Group, Period, Block 14, 5, p Appearance silvery lustrous gray Standard atomic weight 118. ...

The main supply is found in the eastern regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). It is also found and sometimes produced in Ethiopia, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, and Egypt. DRC may stand for: Democratic Republic of the Congo Dancing Robot Contest Danish Refugee Council (drc. ...

Use and demand

Tantalum is used primarily for the production of capacitors, which are vital components in electronic devices, ranging widely from mobile phones to laptop computers. The upsurge in electronic products over the past decade has resulted in extraordinary demands and price increases for the mineral.[4] These price increases have contributed to tension in the producing countries, particularly in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Capacitors: SMD ceramic at top left; SMD tantalum at bottom left; through-hole tantalum at top right; through-hole electrolytic at bottom right. ... Laptop with touchpad. ...

Coltan in the Congo

The Congo is a politically unstable area. The Rwandan occupation in the east of the Congo has meant the DRC has been unable to exploit the resource for its own benefit. A recent UN Security Council report charged that a great deal of the ore is mined illegally and smuggled over the country's eastern borders by militias from neighbouring Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda.^[1] A session of the Security Council in progress The United Nations Security Council is the most powerful organ of the United Nations. ... A skirmish with smugglers from Finland at the Russian border, 1853, by Vasily Hudiakov. ...

Coltan smuggling has also been implicated as a major source of income for the military occupation of Congo. To many, this raises ethical questions akin to those of conflict diamonds. Owing to the difficulty of distinguishing legitimate from illegitimate mining operations, several electronics manufacturers have decided to forgo central African coltan altogether, relying on other sources.^{[citation needed]} A conflict diamond (also called a blood diamond or a war diamond) is a diamond mined in a war zone and sold, usually clandestinely, in order to finance an insurgent or invading armys war efforts. ... Electronics is the study of the flow of charge through various materials and devices such as, semiconductors, resistors, inductors, capacitors, nano-structures, and vacuum tubes. ...

All three countries named by the United Nations as smugglers of coltan have denied being involved. Austrian journalist Klaus Werner has documented links between multi-national companies and the illegal coltan traffic ^[2]. The foundation of the U.N. The United Nations (UN) is an international organization whose stated aims are to facilitate co-operation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress and human rights issues. ...

Environmental concerns

The coltan mining area is within one of the main ranges of the threatened Eastern Lowland gorilla. It is also alleged that coltan mining could have severe environmental repercussions on the forests and wildlife in the area, in particular the gorilla. [5] The Siberian Tiger is a subspecies of tiger that are critically endangered. ... Trinomial name Gorilla beringei graueri (Matschie, 1914) The Eastern Lowland Gorilla (Gorilla beringei graueri) is a subspecies of Eastern Gorilla that is now only found in the forests of eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... A forest is an area with a high density of trees (or, historically, a wooded area set aside for hunting). ...

Price increases and changing demands

There has been a significant drop in the production and sale of coltan and niobium from African mines since the dramatic price spike in 2000, based on dot com speculation and multiple ordering. This is confirmed in part by figures from the United States Geological Survey ^{[3] [4]}. General Name, Symbol, Number niobium, Nb, 41 Chemical series transition metals Group, Period, Block 5, 5, d Appearance gray metallic Standard atomic weight 92. ... Dot-com (also dotcom or redundantly dot. ... InsertSLUTTY WHORES≤ non-formatted text here{| class=toccolours border=1 cellpadding=4 style=float: right; margin: 0 0 1em 1em; width: 20em; border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 95%; clear: right; |+ United States Geological Survey |- |style= align=center colspan=2| [[Image:USGS logo. ...

The Tantalum-Niobium International Study Centre in Belgium (a country with traditionally close links to the Congo), has encouraged international buyers to avoid Congolese coltan on ethical grounds:

"The central African countries of Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda and their neighbours used to be the source of significant tonnages. But civil war, plundering of national parks and exporting of minerals, diamonds and other natural resources to provide funding of militias has caused the Tantalum-Niobium International Study Center to call on its members to take care in obtaining their raw materials from lawful sources. Harm, or the threat of harm, to local people, wildlife or the environment is unacceptable."^[5]

For economic rather than ethical reasons, a shift is also being seen from traditional sources such as Australia, towards new suppliers such as Egypt. This may have been brought about by the bankruptcy of the world's biggest supplier, Australia's Sons of Gwalia, although the company continues to produce and export ore.

References

1. ^ UN press release, 3 May 2001.
2. ^ Werner, Klaus, 2003,The New Black Book of Brand Companies (in German Das neue Schwarzbuch Markenfirmen), ISBN 3-216-30715-8
3. ^ U.S. Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries, January 2002, Tantalum p. 166-7,
4. ^ U.S. Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries, January 2005, Tantalum p. 166-7,
5. ^ Tantalum-Niobium International Study Center, Brussels, Belgium

External links

• UN Coltan Explainer
• Issia, Cote d'Ivoire, Coltan Deposits
• Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting Congo's Bloody Coltan (Video)
• Coltan, Gorillas and cellphones
• Congo's Tragedy: The War The World Forgot
• Cellphones fuel Congo conflict