Tantalum Capacitor Exploding & Burning
Channel: metacollin
Date: 2014-04-15

This is why polarity is emphasized so strongly when it comes to tantalum capacitors.  Even a relatively tiny 33µF 16V solid tantalum capacitor can do a lot of damage if the polarity is wrong.

Even briefly applying a relatively small reverse voltage (in this video, I was applying slightly over 1 volt, that's it) will cause tantalum capacitors to fail, and their main failure mode is a dead short.  I was pumping ~4A into this at 1V, so 4W of heat.  

How could 4W cause that much energy release? Well, it didn't, at least not directly.  Tantalum capacitors are made out of solid tantalum covered in magnesium dioxide.  When you get them hot enough, magnesium dioxide and tantalum ignite and undergo a highly exothermic reaction similar to thermite.  The magnesium dioxide acts as an oxidizer and the tantalum is the fuel.  THAT's where all that heat and fire and flame came from.