Summary
Vanadium is a crucial element in the production of high-quality metal alloys. Being compatible with iron and titanium, vanadium foil is used in cladding titanium to steel. Over 50 steel applications currently utilize Vanadium. The aerospace industry relies on Vanadium as advances in technology have led to the creatiion of new alloys that are super light weight and ultra high strength.
Vanadium pentoxide is also used in making ceramics. Another oxide of vanadium, vanadium dioxide VO2, is used in the production of glass coatings, called Vanadium Blue, which blocks infrared radiation (and non visible light) at a specific temperature. This technology is now considered for industrial purposes.
The possibility to use vanadium redox couples in both half-cells, thereby eliminating the problem of cross contamination by diffusion of ions across the membrane is the advantage of vanadium redox rechargeable batteries. Vanadate can be used for protecting steel against rust and corrosion by electrochemical conversion coating.Lithium vanadium oxide has been proposed for use as a high energy density anode for lithium ion batteries, at 745 Wh/l when paired with a lithium cobalt oxide cathode.
In the last 5 years, the United States Geological Survey reports that 98% of world mine production is derived from South Africa, China and Russia. Large net importers of Vanadium include North America, Western Europe, Japan and Korea for major steel production.
Vanadium is the chemical element with the symbol V and atomic number 23. It is a soft, silvery gray, ductile transition metal. The formation of an oxide layer stabilizes the metal against oxidation. Andrés Manuel del Río discovered vanadium in 1801 by analyzing the mineral vanadinite, and named it erythronium. Four years later, however, he was convinced by other scientists that erythronium was identical to chromium. The element was rediscovered in 1831 by Nils Gabriel Sefström, who named it vanadium after the Norse goddess of beauty and fertility, Vanadis (Freya). Both names were attributed to the wide range of colors found in vanadium compounds.
The element occurs naturally in about 65 different minerals and in fossil fuel deposits. It is produced in China and Russia from steel smelter slag; other countries produce it either from the flue dust of heavy oil, or as a byproduct of uranium mining. It is mainly used to produce specialty steel alloys such as high speed tool steels. The compound vanadium pentoxide is used as a catalyst for the production of sulfuric acid. Vanadium is found in many organisms, and is used by some life forms as an active center of enzymes.
When the Swedish scientist Sefstrom in 1831 named it after Vanadis the Swedish Goddess of Beauty and Fertility, it was because of the attractive brilliant colours of the chemical compounds in which it was first found. It was well named for it has provided material for the brilliant thoughts of the fertile minds of scientists and technologists who, for over 150 years, have developed and continue to develop new materials for the benefit of humanity.
Who found it?
Sefstrom in his painstaking study at the laboratories of the Eckersholm iron works which obtained iron ore from the Taberg iron mountain at Falun in Sweden, separated vanadium from chromium and uranium with which it had been confused. He must have considered the automobile a fiction of the imagination, flying a dream, and space travel a fantasy.
Yet his discovery, which preceded Bessemer's process for making steel by nearly twenty years and the first production of alloy steel by Mushet by over thirty years, was essential for the development of alloy steels and titanium alloys with their remarkable properties. Without these steels and titanium alloys it would not have been possible for man to design machines which enable him to drive across the earth, fly in the sky and travel into space.
Other pioneers in the isolation and use of vanadium were J. Berzelius, in Sweden, Sir Henry Roscoe and Professor Arnold in the UK.
An early user of vanadium was Henry Ford in his Model T who specially highlighted the use of vanadium-containing steels as imparting twice the strength for half the weight.
Source of above information: www.vanitec.com
