Discovery date : 1801
Discovered by: Andrés Manuel del Rio
Origin of the name: The element is named after 'Vanadis',
the old Norse name for the Scandinavian goddess Freyja.
Allotropes :
~>VANADIUM is a chemical element with symbol V and atomic number 23. It is a hard, silvery grey, ductile, and malleable transition metal. The elemental metal is rarely found in nature, but once isolated artificially, the formation of an oxide layer (passivation) stabilizes the free metal somewhat against further oxidation.
| FACT BOX | |||
| Group | 5 | Melting point | 1910°C, 3470°F, 2183 K |
| Period | 4 | Boiling point | 3407°C, 6165°F, 3680 K |
| Block | d | Density (g cm−3) | 6.0 |
| Atomic number | 23 | Relative atomic mass | 50.942 |
| State at 20°C | Solid | Key isotopes | 51V |
| Electron configuration | [Ar] 3d34s2 | CAS number | 7440-62-2 |
| ChemSpider ID | 22426 | ChemSpider is a free chemical structure database | |
Vanadium was discovered twice. The first time was in 1801 by Andrés Manuel del Rio who was Professor of Mineralogy in Mexico City. He found it in a specimen of vanadite, Pb5(VO4)3Cl and sent a sample to Paris. However, French chemists concluded that it was a chromium mineral.
The second time vanadium was discovered was in 1831 by the Swedish chemist Nil Gabriel Selfström at Stockholm. He separated it from a sample of cast iron made from ore that had been mined at Småland. He was able to show that it was a new element, and in so doing he beat a rival chemist, Friedrich Wöhler, to the discovery He was also working another vanadium mineral from Zimapan.
Pure vanadium was produced by Henry Roscoe at Manchester, in 1869, and he showed that previous samples of the metal were really vanadium nitride (VN).