H.C. Starck Newton tantalum operations

H.C. Starck (now part of Bayer) operates one of the world's largest tantalum production facilities in residential Newton, MA. Tom traces its founding to post-WWII MIT mechanical engineering vacuum-melting innovation.

We do use cold welding in a few cases. One is to make wire bonds. If I'm trying to draw wire — if you go over to Newton, Massachusetts, there's a company H.C. Starck that is one of the world's largest producers of tantalum. H.C. Starck is part of Bayer Chemical in Germany, one of the world's largest chemical companies, rivals DuPont in size. This factory in the middle of Newton, in the residential area, was started after World War II, probably because of the MIT mechanical engineering department. The mechanical engineering department developed a way to generate very good vacuum on an industrial scale. As a result, Norton Research Company started looking at being able to melt refractory materials. I don't know if this work came out of the Manhattan Project or not — it might have, because they were trying to melt things like uranium, which is very reactive, you need to melt it in a vacuum.