Compounds
See also: Category:Niobium compoundsNiobium is in many ways similar to tantalum and zirconium. It reacts with most nonmetals at high temperatures: niobium reacts with fluorine at room temperature, with chlorine and hydrogen at 200 °C, and with nitrogen at 400 °C, giving products that are frequently interstitial and nonstoichiometric. The metal begins to oxidize in air at 200 °C, and is resistant to corrosion by fused alkalis and by acids, including aqua regia, hydrochloric, sulfuric, nitric and phosphoric acids. Niobium is attacked by hydrofluoric acid and hydrofluoric/nitric acid mixtures.
Although niobium exhibits all of the formal oxidation states from +5 to −1, in most commonly encountered compounds, it is found in the +5 state. Characteristically, compounds in oxidation states less than 5+ display Nb-Nb bonding.
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