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Material World
Element · V

Vanadium

The addition that made tool steel hold an edge, named after a Norse goddess for the colours of its compounds.

Vanadium's industrial role is almost entirely as a steel additive. Under a percent of it forms very hard, very stable carbides that resist being dissolved back into the iron at working temperature, which is what lets a vanadium steel keep its hardness while being cut and shaped.

High-speed steel — the material that made powered machining practical — depends on exactly that property. Its other prospect is electrochemical: vanadium's several oxidation states make it suitable for flow batteries, where energy capacity is set by tank size rather than by cell count.

Name origin

Named after Vanadis, a name of the Norse goddess Freyja, for the range of colours its compounds take.

Uses

Vanadium is a steel additive above all. A fraction of a per cent produces a marked increase in strength and toughness, which is why it is standard in tool steels, spring steel, and the reinforcing bar used in earthquake-resistant construction.

Vanadium pentoxide is the catalyst for sulfuric acid manufacture. Vanadium redox flow batteries store grid-scale energy in liquid electrolyte tanks, an approach that scales by adding tank volume rather than cells, and which suits stationary storage in a way lithium does not.

Medium confidence Weak evidence

How we know: checked recently · only one source, so there is nothing to cross-check it against · stated directly by the source.

How this connects

Where a connection has been confirmed by an outside reference, that reference is named beside it.

is used as

  • Alloying — application · in high-speed and tool steels
  • Catalysis — application · vanadium pentoxide is the catalyst of the contact process

is extracted from

  • Vanadinite — mineral · a minor ore — most vanadium is a by-product of iron and uranium processing Wikidata

is sourced from

  • Iron — element · most vanadium is recovered from the slags of iron and steel making rather than from a vanadium mine
  • Uranium — element · and from uranium processing, where it occurs in the same ores

is produced by

  • Smelting — process · as ferrovanadium, reduced from vanadium slag and going straight into steel without being separated as the metal

is an alternative to

  • Niobium — element · as a microalloying addition to structural steel: a few hundredths of a per cent of either pins the grain size and raises strength, and which is used comes down to price and local practice

is found in

  • Ti-6Al-4V — alloy · 3.5–4.5% · stabilises the cubic beta phase, so the alloy contains both and can be heat treated
  • Tool steel — alloy · 0–4% · forms the hardest carbides of any of them, which is what gives wear resistance
  • High-speed steel — alloy · 1–5% · the hardest carbides, and the reason high-vanadium grades are difficult to grind
  • Wootz steel — alloy · in traces from the specific ores used, and modern work identifies it as the element that organises the carbide banding — which is why the steel could not be reproduced from a recipe alone
  • Vanadinite — mineral Wikidata

Sources

  • Material World
    Our own writing
  • Wikidata
    Wikimedia Foundation · Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal (public domain dedication)
  • PubChem
    US National Library of Medicine · Mixed — aggregated third-party content, rights retained by depositors
  • NIST — National Institute of Standards and Technology
    United States Department of Commerce · US Government work — public information, credit requested

Questions this page answers

Where it comes from, and what it becomes

Follow Vanadium back to what it starts as, and forward into what it becomes. Each step is a documented one — a real route material takes, not a chain of inference.

Upstream — what it comes from

  • Vanadium → is sourced from (most vanadium is recovered from the slags of iron and steel making rather than from a vanadium mine) → Iron → is produced by (as pig iron, high in carbon and brittle until refined) → Smelting → takes as input (as the element removed, not added) → Oxygen → is produced by (the largest output by tonnage, and the reason air separation units sit beside steelworks) → Air separation → takes as input (the feedstock, and an unusual one in being free, unlimited and available anywhere — the cost is entirely the energy to liquefy it) → Air
  • Vanadium → is produced by (as ferrovanadium, reduced from vanadium slag and going straight into steel without being separated as the metal) → Smelting → takes as input (as the element removed, not added) → Oxygen → is produced by (the largest output by tonnage, and the reason air separation units sit beside steelworks) → Air separation → takes as input (the feedstock, and an unusual one in being free, unlimited and available anywhere — the cost is entirely the energy to liquefy it) → Air
  • Vanadium → is sourced from (and from uranium processing, where it occurs in the same ores) → Uranium → is produced by (as yellowcake rather than metal: leaching and solvent extraction end at a uranium oxide concentrate, and the metal is several conversion steps further on) → Solvent extraction and electrowinning → takes as input (in the low-grade and oxidised ores that flotation cannot economically treat, with bacteria oxidising the sulfide into a form the acid can attack) → Chalcopyrite
  • Vanadium → is extracted from (a minor ore — most vanadium is a by-product of iron and uranium processing) → Vanadinite
  • Vanadium → is sourced from (most vanadium is recovered from the slags of iron and steel making rather than from a vanadium mine) → Iron → is extracted from (the most-used iron ore, though magnetite is richer) → Hematite
  • Vanadium → is produced by (as ferrovanadium, reduced from vanadium slag and going straight into steel without being separated as the metal) → Smelting → takes as input (roasted to drive off sulfur, then reduced to copper) → Chalcopyrite

These are the most distinct paths back. Vanadium can be traced through others besides.

Downstream — what it becomes

  • Vanadium → is used as (in high-speed and tool steels) → Alloying
  • Vanadium → is used as (vanadium pentoxide is the catalyst of the contact process) → Catalysis