Hi, I recently bought some .999 pure Tantalum wire that I would like
to try and anodize. As I haven’t done any anodizing before, I was
hoping I could get some advice as to how to do this. I know it
anodizes similarly to Titanium, but with a different voltage range.
The I was able to find says a voltage range of 20-170
volts, but, so far, all the anodizers I’ve seen don’t get that high.
I would really like to be able to use the full range of possible
colours. What do I need to use to do this?
Any advice and on how to anodize Tantalum is greatly
appreciated as I really don’t want to mess up my wire, and I know
working with voltages that high can be dangerous.
Tantalum works very much like Niobium. The first two orders of color
can be produced with a 0-120 VDC power supply. Both metals will
anodize to much high voltages. For that matter so will Titanium. I
have run test to over 300 volts and seen some 7 orders of color. The
second order of colors repeats over and over again. Because some
light is lost in the oxides, with the growing thickness the colors
soften in the higher orders. Some power supplies can be wired in
series… two 100 volt units equal 200 volts output.
Safety is always a concern. If you do not know or are unsure of what
you are doing you might look for some help.
Hope you got a good deal on the Ta. it has become very costly of
late.