Niobium is one of the important strategic mineral resources. It is a silver gray, soft and ductile rare metal with high melting point. Niobium does not react with inorganic acids or bases, nor is it soluble in aqua regia, and has strong corrosion resistance.

It is understood that the metal niobium can be widely used in iron and steel industry, aerospace industry, superconducting materials and other application fields.About 85% ~ 90% of the world's niobium in the form of niobium iron used in steel production, steel only adding 0.03% ~ 0.05% niobium can make the steel yield strength increased by more than 30%, and adjust the toughness level of steel. Niobium-containing steel is widely used in automobile, bridge, oil transmission pipeline, natural gas transmission pipeline, oil drilling, offshore oil drilling platform, railway track, civil construction reinforcement and so on.

High purity niobium material is widely used in the aerospace field, mainly used in the production of rocket, spacecraft engine and heat-resistant parts, almost all jet fighter engine thermal parts are niobium alloy.

Some compounds and alloys of niobium have high superconducting transition temperature, so it is widely used in the manufacture of various industrial superconductors. At present, almost all industrial superconducting devices use NbTi and Nb3Sn as superconductors, such as superconducting generators, accelerator high-power magnets, superconducting magnetic energy storage devices, nuclear magnetic resonance imaging equipment, etc.

Currently, most of the world's niobium demand comes from Brazil and Canada. At present, the main types of niobium ore are pegmatite and granite-type tantalum niobium ore, which have low niobium grade and small scale and are associated tantalum resources.