You may not have heard of coltan, but it’s a key raw mineral whose components are found in everyday technologies from smartphones to laptops as well as advanced medical equipment.
However, the supply chain for the black metallic mineral has faced controversy given that the vast majority of coltan comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), an African nation that was locked in civil war in the past, with unrest still continuing today.
Coltan is one of the mineral resources that is playing an important role in the technological revolution. As demand for coltan and the metals inside it grows, understanding its value in the global supply chain and our daily lives is important. Here are five coltan facts you should know.
Short for columbite-tantalite, coltan ore itself hosts columbite, also known as niobite, and tantalite, which contain the technology elements niobium and tantalum respectively.
The aftermath of war has left both the DRC and Rwanda vulnerable to militia and other groups that often fight over control of the valuable mineral resource sector. We discuss coltan’s conflict mineral status in depth in number 5.
Coltan and its elements niobium and tantalum, have a wide variety of uses in today’s economy, including in electronics, steel and medical devices. Although they are often found together, each have very different properties and applications.
They use several methods to process the ore, depending on the equipment available at the mining site, with the most common processing techniques being sluicing and panning. In panning, the rock and sand are panned and filtered until the coltan mineral sinks to the bottom.
There has also been a push towards holding mining companies accountable for the integrity and validity of their supply chains. This has led to talks about integrating supply chain due diligence through the blockchain and increasing government intervention to better monitor and control the sourcing of coltan and its by-product metals.
This is an updated version of an article first published by the Investing News Network in 2015.
Securities Disclosure: I, Melissa Pistilli, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.
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