vanadium
Sign in to saveVanadium is a chemical element; it has symbol V and atomic number 23. It is a hard, silvery-grey, malleable transition metal. The elemental metal is rarely found in nature, but once isolated artificially, the formation of an oxide layer (passivation) somewhat stabilizes the free metal against further oxidation.
AI overview
Vanadium is a hard, silvery-grey metal (element V) that doesn't naturally occur in pure form but becomes more stable once artificially isolated and develops a protective oxide coating. It's a transition metal with useful properties, though it's rarely encountered as elemental metal in nature.
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Article
26 sectionsContents
- History
- Characteristics
- Isotopes
- Compounds
- Oxyanions
- Halide derivatives
- Coordination compounds
- Organometallic compounds
- Occurrence
- Production
- Applications
- Alloys
- Catalysts
- Other uses
- Proposed
- Biological role
- Vanadoenzymes
- Vanadium accumulation in tunicates
- Fungi
- Mammals
- Research
- Safety
- See also
- References
- Further reading
- External links
Vanadium is a chemical element; it has symbol V and atomic number 23. It is a hard, silvery-grey, malleable transition metal. The elemental metal is rarely found in nature, but once isolated artificially, the formation of an oxide layer (passivation) somewhat stabilizes the free metal against further oxidation.
Spanish-Mexican scientist Andrés Manuel del Río discovered compounds of vanadium in 1801 by analyzing a new lead-bearing mineral he called "brown lead". Though he initially presumed its qualities were due to the presence of a new element, he was later erroneously convinced by French chemist Hippolyte Victor Collet-Descotils that the element was just chromium. Then in 1830, Nils Gabriel Sefström generated chlorides of vanadium, thus proving there was a new element, and named it "vanadium" after the Scandinavian goddess of beauty and fertility, Vanadís (Freyja). The name was based on the wide range of colors found in vanadium compounds. Del Río's lead mineral was ultimately named vanadinite for its vanadium content. In 1867, Henry Enfield Roscoe obtained the pure element.