Vanadium

Vanadium: the essentials

Brief description: pure vanadium is a greyish silvery metal, and is soft and ductile. It has good corrosion resistance to alkalis, sulphuric acid, hydrochloric acid, and salt waters. The metal oxidizes readily above 660°C to form V₂O₅. Industrially, most vanadium produced is used as an additive to improve steels.

Small and large samples of vanadium foil like this can be purchased via their web catalogue from Advent Research Materials via their web catalogue.

Isolation

Isolation: vanadium is available commercially and production of a sample in the laboratory is not normally required. Commercially, routes leading to matallic vanadium as main product are not usually required as enough is produced as byproduct in other processes.

In industry, heating of vanadium ore or residues from other processes with salt, NaCl, or sodium carbonate, Na₂CO₃, at about 850°C gives sodium vanadate, NaVO₃. This is dissolved in water and acidified to give a red solid which in turn is melted to form a crude form of vanadium pentoxide, "V₂O₅". Reduction of vanadium pentoxide with calcium, Ca, gives pure vanadium. An alternative suitable for small scales is the reduction of vanadium pentachloride, VCl₅, with hydrogen, H₂, or magnesium, Mg. Many other methodsare also in use.

Industrially, most vanadium is used as an additive to improve steels. Rather than proceed via pure vanadium metal it is often sufficient to react the crude of vanadium pentoxide, "V₂O₅", with crude iron. This produces ferrovanadium suitable for further work.

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