tantalum carbide

Tantalum carbides have metallic electrical conductivity, both in terms of its magnitude and temperature dependence.

Being important cermet materials, tantalum carbides are commercially used in tool bits for cutting applications and are sometimes added to tungsten carbide alloys.

Tantalum carbides form a family of binary chemical compounds of tantalum and carbon with the empirical formula TaC, where x usually varies between 0.4 and 1.

The bonding between tantalum and carbon atoms in tantalum carbides is a complex mixture of ionic, metallic and covalent contributions, and because of the strong covalent component these carbides are very hard and brittle materials.