Vanadium

Vanadium is a soft, shiny, silvery metal which can be found in many different minerals, including some crude oils. It has an abundance of 160 ppm in the earth’s crust and can be isolated after conversion to the pentoxide, V₂O₅, followed by direct reduction with aluminium. High purity metal can be obtained by the van Arkel process in which the iodide is decomposed on a hot filament under vacuum. 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. A typical vanadium content would be 0.5% max.

Symbol

V

Discovered

Mexico City in 1801 by A.M. del Rio, and was rediscovered in 1831 by N.G. Selfstrom in Falun, Sweden.

Click on an item to paste into clipboard or use clipboard symbol at end to clipboard all values

Atomic number	23		Clip
Atomic / Molecular Weight	50.9415	gmol-1	Clip
Density	6090	kgm-3	Clip
Crystal Structure	bcc		Clip
Lattice constant	302	fm	Clip
Melting Point	2193	K	Clip
Boiling Point	3673	K	Clip
Linear expansivity	0.0000084	K-1	Clip
Specific heat capacity	481	Jkg-1K-1	Clip
Thermal conductivity	31	Wm-1K-1	Clip
Acoustic wave velocity (longitudinal bulk waves)	6023	ms-1	Clip
Acoustic wave velocity (Irrotational waves)	4584	ms-1	Clip
Acoustic wave velocity (Shear waves)	2774	ms-1	Clip
Acoustic wave velocity (Rayleigh waves)	2600	ms-1	Clip

paste all data into clipboard

See also: Iron, Periodic Table, Steel.