Recovery of Tantalum Sintered Compact from Used Tantalum Condenser Using Steam Gasification with Sodium Hydroxide

Recovery of tantalum resource from used tantalum capacitor in electric equipment is important because the production of tantalum have not been stable for the price and the quantity. However, recovery of tantalum sintered compact from tantalum capacitor is difficult since the compact strongly covered with the flame retardant resin made of halogenated compounds (mold resin). In this study, steam gasification with sodium hydroxide was applied for recovery of tantalum sintered compact by destroying mold resin and stabilization of halogenated compounds in sodium hydroxide to prevent exhausting halogenated gas. Mold resin can be decomposed by steam gasification with NaOH to recover the sintered compact of tantalum. Furthermore, most halogen gas generated from decomposition of mold resin can be trapped in sodium hydroxide not to exhaust halogen gas. These results suggested that recovery process of tantalum sintered compact from the used condenser using steam gasification with sodium hydroxide is expected as a feasible way to recycle the rare metal in electric equipment.