Vanadium

Model Number: GK-198 Brand Name: GENPHOAL Key Specifications/Special Features: Vanadium is a chemical element with symbol V and atomic number 23. It is a hard, silvery gray, ductile and malleable transition metal.The element is found only in chemically combined form in nature, but once isolated artificially, the formation of an oxide layer stabilizes the free metal somewhat against further oxidation.Andrés Manuel del Río discovered compounds of vanadium in 1801 in Mexico by analyzing a new lead-bearing mineral he called "brown lead," and presumed its qualities were due to the presence of a new element, which he named erythronium (Greek for "red") since, upon heating, most of its salts turned from their initial color to red.Four years later, however, he was (erroneously) convinced by other scientists that erythronium was identical to chromium.Chlorides of vanadium were generated in 1830 by Nils Gabriel Sefstrm who thereby proved that a new element was involved, which he named "vanadium" after the Scandinavian goddess of beauty and fertility, Vanadís (Freyja).Both names were attributed to the wide range of colors found in vanadium compounds. Del Rio's lead mineral was later renamed vanadinite for its vanadium content.In 1867 Henry Enfield Roscoe obtained the pure element.
Vanadium 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 most important industrial vanadium compound, vanadium pentoxide, is used as a catalyst for the production of sulfuric acid.