Tantalum is a very hard, ductile, and lustrous blue-gray transition metal known for its high corrosion resistance. As part of the refractory metals group, tantalum is widely used in strong, high-melting-point alloys. It belongs to group 5 of the periodic table, alongside vanadium and niobium, and is commonly found in geological sources with the chemically similar niobium, particularly in the minerals tantalite, columbite, and coltan.

Due to its chemical inertness and extremely high melting point, tantalum is valuable for laboratory and industrial equipment, such as reaction vessels and vacuum furnaces. It is essential in the production of tantalum capacitors used in electronic devices like computers. Additionally, tantalum is being explored as a material for high-quality superconducting resonators in quantum processors. The European Commission considers tantalum a technology-critical element.