 Discovery Information
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| Who: Nils Sefstrom |
| When: 1830 |
| Where: Sweden |
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| Name Origin
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| From Vanadis the Scandinavian goddess. |
| "Vanadium" in different languages. |
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| Sources
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| Vanadium is never found unbound in nature but it does occur in about 65 different minerals among which are patronite (VS4), vanadinite [Pb5(VO4)3Cl], and carnotite [K2(UO2)2(VO4)2.3H2O]. Vanadium is also present in bauxite, and in carbon containing deposits such as crude oil, coal, oil shale and tar sands. The spectra of vanadium has also been detected in light
from the Sun and some other stars.
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| Annual world wide production is around 7 thousand tons. |
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| Abundance
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| Universe: 1 ppm (by weight) |
| Sun: 0.4 ppm (by weight) |
| Carbonaceous meteorite: 62 ppm |
| Earth's Crust: 190 ppm |
| Seawater: |
| Atlantic surface: 1.1 x 10-3 ppm
|
| Atlantic deep: n/a ppm |
| Pacific surface: 1.6 x 10-3 ppm
|
| Pacific deep: 1.8 x 10-3 ppm
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| Human: |
| 30 ppb by weight |
| 4 ppb by atoms |
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| Uses
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| It is mixed with other metals to make very strong and durable alloys which are used in construction materials, tools, surgical instruments, springs and jet engines. Vanadium pentoxide (V2O5) is used as a catalyst in manufacturing sulfuric acid, a dye and colour-fixer.
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| Glass coated with vanadium dioxide (VO2) can block infrared radiation (and not visible light) at some specific temperature.
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|
| History
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| Vanadium was originally discovered by Andres Manuel del Rio (a Spanish-born Mexican mineralogist) in Mexico City, in 1801.
He called it "brown lead" (now named vanadinite, Pb5(VO4)3Cl). Through experimentation, its colours reminded him of chromium, so he named the element panchromium. He later renamed
this compound erythronium, since most of the salts turned red when heated. The French chemist Hippolyte Victor Collet-Descotils
incorrectly declared that del Rio's new element was only impure chromium. Del Rio thought himself to be mistaken and accepted the statement of the French chemist that was also backed by Del Rio's
friend Baron Alexander von Humboldt.
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| In 1831, Sefstrom of Sweden rediscovered vanadium in a new oxide he found while working with some iron ores and later that same year Friedrich Wöhler confirmed del Rio's earlier work. Later, George William Featherstonhaugh, one of the first US geologists, suggested that
the element should be named "rionium" after Del Rio, but this never happened. Metallic vanadium was isolated by Henry Enfield
Roscoe in 1867, who reduced vanadium(III) chloride VCl3 with hydrogen. The name vanadium comes from Vanadis, a goddess in Scandinavian mythology, because the element has beautiful multicoloured
chemical compounds
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| Notes
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| It is one of the 26 elements commonly found in living things. |
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| Hazards
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| Powdered metallic vanadium is a fire hazard, and all vanadium compounds are highly toxic. Vanadium compounds may cause lung cancer if inhaled.
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