Vanadium - The Norse Goddess Vanadis

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A curl of Vanadium
Photo Credit: PeriodicTable.com
Atomic Number: 23
Relative Atomic Mass: 50.9
Group: 5
Period: 4
Block: D

Symbol: V

Vanadium (seen as a curl in the picture: left) is a rare silver, hard but malleable metal which can resist corrosion. Vanadium is found in an estimated 65 different minerals! These minerals include; Carnotite, patronite and vanadinite (Pb₅(VO₄)₃Cl).
It is also found in phosphate rock, types of iron ore and crude oil.

The name, Vanadium, comes from the shorter word vanadis which is the Norse name for the Scandinavian goddess - Freyja. Vanadis is the goddess of many things;
  • Love 
  • Sex 
  • Beauty
  • Fertility
  • War
  • Death
  • Gold - (Ironically, not the element mentioned) 
Discovery of Vanadium
Andres Manuel del Rio
Photo Credit: Wikipedia
Vanadium was actually discovered twice. The first (and official time) in the year 1801 by the Spanish-Mexican scientist, Andrés Manuel del Rio. Andrés Manuel was the professor of Mineralogy in Mexico City. He was also known as a naturalist - a type of philosophy which is the idea or belief that only natural laws and forces are the only things that operate in the world.
Andrés Manuel found the element in vanadinite which he sent to Paris to be analysed. But, the French chemists concluded that the mineral had Chromium in (Cr, AN: 24).

Vanadium would be found 30 years later by a Swedish chemist - Nil Gabriel Selfström. The chemist isolated the element from a sample of Iron which had been made from ore in Smaland, Sweden. Selfström was able to prove that this element was indeed new and consequently, beating another chemist - Friedrich Wöhler, to the discovery.
Friedrich Wöhler was working on another mineral which contains Vanadium from Zimapan (Town in Mexico).

The pure element was only produced in the year 1869 in Manchester (UK) by Sir Henry Roscoe. Sir Henry showed that the previous samples of the metal were Vanadium Nitride (VN), not pure vanadium.

Nowadays, Vanadium is obtained by reducing Vanadium Oxide with Calcium inside a pressured vessel. High purity Vanadium has to be obtained by reducing Vanadium (III) Chlorine with Magnesium.

 Biological Uses

Vanadium is actually essential to some species - including us. We don't need eat alot of Vanadium, just 0.01mg is needed daily.

Although, not all Vanadium compounds are nice to humans. Some compounds such as Vanadium pentaoxide is toxic. Long exposures to this compound cause severe irritation, inflammation of the airway and systemic posioning.

 It's Uses
  • 80% of Vanadium is used as a steel additive
    • Vanadium + Steel alloys are very tough - used for armour plates, axles, tools and piston rods.
    • It only needs a small amount of Vanadium - sometimes even less than 1%, to make steel shock and vibrate resistant.
  • Titanium-Aluminium-Vanadium alloy is used in jet engines.
  • Vanadium alloys are used in nuclear reactors due to vanadium's low neutron-absorbing characteristics.
  • Vanadium Oxide is used as a pigment for ceramics and glass 

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