The United States is the largest consumer of
tantalum, consuming 500 tons in 1997, 60% of which is used to produce tantalum capacitors. Japan is the second largest consumer of tantalum, at 334 tonnes. In the early 21st century, with the rapid development of capacitor production, the market is in short supply. It is estimated that the world's production of tantalum capacitors is 250 million pieces and 1,000 tons of tantalum will be consumed. According to the United States geological survey, the world's proven reserves of tantalum are 14,000 tons. Of these, 4,500 tons are from Australia, 3,200 tons from Nigeria, 1,800 tons from the democratic republic of the Congo, 1,800 tons from Canada and 1,400 tons from Brazil.China's resources are mainly distributed in jiangxi, fujian, xinjiang, guangxi and hunan provinces. From the perspective of future development demand, capacitors are still the main application field of tantalum. If the reserves are based on 24, 000 tons, it will guarantee only 24 years of demand. Nevertheless, the prospect of tantalum resource is still good. First, tantalum is associated with the world's abundant
niobium deposits. Among them, the tantalum resources of the gadar niobium tantalum mine in southern Greenland amount to 1 million tons. Second, the west has started to use large amounts of tin slag containing less than 3 per cent Ta2O5.In addition, the research and use of substitutes has also developed rapidly, such as aluminum and ceramics in the capacitor field to replace tantalum; Silicon, germanium and cesium can replace the rectifier of tantalum in electronic instrument.