Niobium Production in Brazil

Harry visited the niobium mines in Araxa, Brazil, as a part of a meeting organised by CBMM on the heat affected zones of pipeline steel welds.

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Arrival in Sao Paulo	Spotted Professor Bob Cochrane (Leeds Universtiy) in the immigration queue
Sao Paulo airport	Sao Paulo airport
Sao Paulo airport	Sao Paulo airport
Waiting for the flight to Araxa	Checking in for Araxa
Steve Webster and Bob Cochrane	Shinohara from Nippon Steel
Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metals are amalgamating to form one company	In the CBMM lounge in Sao Paulo, waiting for departure to Araxa
In the CBMM lounge in Sao Paulo, waiting for departure to Araxa	The plane for Araxa
A view from the plane
	After landing at the airport in Araxa
	After landing at the airport in Araxa
After landing at the airport in Araxa	After landing at the airport in Araxa
	The hotel in Araxa - this is a spiral welded steel pipe
The hotel in Araxa
The hotel in Araxa	The hotel in Araxa
Courtesy of CBMM
	The hotel in Araxa
	The essence of Brazil
Sign in coach leading to the CBMM mine	At the mine.
A tree planting ceremony	Children of CBMM employees, greeting us
... with a lovely set of energetic songs
Professor Elena Pereloma helping to plant the tree	She is from Woolongong University in Australia
	Bob Cochrane
	John Speer from the Colorado School of Mines does his bit.
Ferroniobium
	There is also a wildlife sanctuary at CBMM
Wolf
	Giant ant eater
	Exotic flora
The ore contains about 2 wt% or niobium in the form of pyrochlore (containign niobium pentoxide in the form (Ca,Na)2(Nb,Ta,Ti)2O6(OH,F)). It is first enriched by floatation and then heated in an electric arc furnace with aluminium and iron.	The aluminium reacts to liberate niobium which dissolves in the iron to produce ferroniobium
Here the slag (alumina rich) is being tapped.
We then visited the laboratories
	This is the mine, which contains at least 200 years worth of reserves
	The niobium mine.
	The factory where the ore is processed is exceptionally clean.
	The entire technology has been developed by CBMM
	The final product
Here for shipment to China
Some of the pure niobium produced from niobium oxide is electron beam refined to extremely high purity.
Grain structures of the electron beam refined material
	This is the electron beam melter
This is the electron beam melter
This is the electron beam melter
The conference	Here Malcolm Gray is being presented with a rare, niobium watch, in recognition of his services to CBMM.
David Delagostini Jarreta (on the left) and Daniel Pallos Fridman, both with CBMM

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