The chemical element vanadium has the atomic number 23 and the symbol the letter V. It is a hard, silvery gray and malleable transition metal. Rarely found in nature, the elemental metal is partially stabilized against further oxidation after artificial extraction. This process is called passivation.
Spanish-Mexican scientist Andrés Manuel del Rio discovered vanadium compounds in 1801 by studying a new lead-containing mineral he named "brown lead". Although he initially assumed that its properties were due to the presence of a new element, he was later mistakenly convinced by the French chemist Hippolyte Victor Collet-Descotils that the element was simply chromium.
Later in 1830, Nils Gabriel Sefström produced vanadium chlorides, demonstrating the existence of a new element and naming it "vanadium" in honor of the Scandinavian goddess of fertility and beauty, Vanads (Freyja). This name was chosen because the vanadium compounds come in various shades. The vanadium component of the lead mineral at Del Rio led to its eventual designation as vanadinite. Henry Enfield Roscoe obtained the pure element in 1867.
About 65 minerals naturally contain vanadium, such as fossil fuel reserves. It is obtained from steel melting slag in China and Russia. Other countries produce it directly from magnetite, heavy oil flue dust, or as a byproduct of uranium mining.
Special steel alloys, including high speed tool steels and some aluminum alloys, are mainly produced using this chemical. Vanadium pentoxide, the most important industrial vanadium chemical, acts as a catalyst in the production of sulfuric acid. In the future, the vanadium redox battery for energy storage may play an important role.
A few organisms have significant levels of vanadium ions that can be poisonous. Vanadium oxide and a few additional salts are somewhat toxic. Vanadium is used by some life forms, especially aquatic ones, as an active center for enzymes such as vanadium bromoperoxidase found in some oceanic algae.
History of Vanadium
Vanadium was discovered in Mexico in 1801 by Spanish mineralogist Andrés Manuel del Río. The element, later known as vanadinite, was isolated by Del Ro from a sample of Mexican "brown lead" ore. He named the element panchrome (Greek: o “all colours”) after seeing that his salts exhibited a wide variety of hues. Because most salts turn red when heated, Del Ro later gave the element a new name, erythronium (Greek:, "red"). With the support of Del Ro's friend, Baron Alexander von Humboldt, French chemist Hippolyte Victor Collet-Descotils mistakenly claimed in 1805 that del Ro's new element was an impure sample of chromium. Del Ro acknowledged Collet-Descotils' claim and withdrew his own.
The element was detected in 1831 by Swedish scientist Nils Gabriel Sefström in a new oxide he came across while working with iron ores. Later that year, Friedrich Wöhler supported del Ro's previous research by confirming that this element was the same one discovered by del Ro. Sefström chose a name with the letter V, which had not been given to any element before. He named it the Old Norse Vanads (another name for the Scandinavian Vanir goddess Freyja, whose properties include beauty and fertility) because of the wonderfully colored chemical compounds formed by the element vanadium. Upon learning of Wöhler's discoveries, Del Ro began to fiercely defend the acceptance of his earlier claim, but the naming of the element vanadium. Geologist George William Featherstonhaugh suggested in 1831 that the vanadium be renamed "rionium" in del Ro's honor, but the idea was not adopted. It was difficult to isolate the vanadium metal. Berzelius claimed to have developed the metal in 1831, but Henry Enfield Roscoe showed that Berzelius actually produced vanadium nitride (VN). Roscoe succeeded in forming the metal in 1867 by reducing vanadium(II) chloride, VCl2, with hydrogen. Pure vanadium was obtained by reducing vanadium pentoxide with calcium in 1927.
The Ford Model T's steel alloy chassis, modeled after French race cars, was the first major industrial application of vanadium. Vanadium steel allowed weight reduction while increasing tensile strength (ca. 1905). [11] Most of the vanadium ore was mined in the first decade of the 20th century by the American Vanadium Company from Minas Ragra, Peru.
Later, when demand for uranium increased, there was an increase in ore mining for this metal. Carnotite, which also contains vanadium, was an important source of uranium. As a result, vanadium has become a byproduct of the uranium industry. Vanadium demand was eventually met to a large extent by uranium mining.
The blood cells (or coelomic cells) of ascidiacea contain hemovanadin proteins, which German chemist Martin Henze discovered in 1911 to contain vanadium. (sea beetle beetle).
Properties of Vanadium
A steel-blue metal of medium hardness and ductility, vanadium. It is thermally insulating and electrically conductive. Vanadium is often called "soft" because it is ductile, malleable, and non-brittle. Unlike other metals and steels, vanadium is extremely hard.
It has strong corrosion resistance and maintains its stability when exposed to alkalis, sulfuric and hydrochloric acids. [18] It oxidizes in air at about 933 K (660 °C, 1220 °F), although an oxide passivation layer is formed even at ambient temperature.
Isotopes of Vanadium
One stable isotope, 51V, and one radioactive isotope, 50V, form vanadium in its natural state. The latter has a natural abundance of 0,25% and a half-life of 1.5×1017 years. 51V has a nuclear spin of 72, which is advantageous for NMR spectroscopy. A total of 40 synthetic radioisotopes with masses ranging from 65 to 24 have been identified. Among them, the two isotopes with the longest half-lives are 330V with a half-life of 49 days and 16.0V with a half-life of 48 days.
The half-lives of the remaining radioactive isotopes are usually less than 10 seconds and less than an hour. Metastable excited states exist for at least four isotopes. For isotopes lighter than 51V, the primary decay mode is electron capture. Beta decay is the most common mechanism for the heavier ones. Element 24 (chromium) isotopes are produced by beta decay, while element 22 (titanium) isotopes are created by electron capture processes.
Source: Wikipedia
Günceleme: 06/02/2023 00:10
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