Vanadium

About Vanadium Metal & Alloys

Vanadium is a soft, shiny, silvery metal and its elemental form, vanadium has a bluish-silver appearance.  Vanadium is found in 65 different minerals as well as phosphate rock, certain iron ores, some crude oils (in the form of complexes) and meteorites. Some of the more important minerals in which vanadium is found include carnotite, roscoelite, vanadinite and patronite.  Vanadium is not found free in nature however, once isolated it forms an oxide layer that stabilizes the free metal against further oxidation

Pure vanadium resists corrosion due to the formation of a protective oxide film on its surface; it is attacked by concentrated acids but not by fused alkalis. The principal use for vanadium is as an alloying constituent, particularly in steels where it is introduced as ferrovanadium, an alloy of iron and vanadium. The addition of vanadium to steels removes occluded oxygen and nitrogen, thus improving the materials’ strength.

It is a hard, ductile transition metal that is primarily used as a steel additive and in alloys such as Titanium-6AL-4V, which is composed of titanium, aluminum, and vanadium and is the most common titanium alloy commercially produced. Vanadium (atomic symbol: V, atomic number: 23) is a Block D, Group 5, Period 4 element with an atomic weight of 50.9415. Vanadium was discovered by Andres Manuel del Rio in 1801 and first isolated by Nils Gabriel Sefström in 1830. Vanadium was named after the word “Vanadis” meaning goddess of beauty in Scandinavian mythology.  Commercially, vanadium is produced by reducing vanadium trichloride with magnesium metal or a mixture of magnesium and sodium or via the calcium reduction of V2O5 in a pressure vessel.

Note:  Vanadium is toxic, and care is required when handling vanadium and its compounds.