Vanadium - V
Chemical properties of vanadium - Health effects of vanadium - Environmental effects of vanadium
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Vanadium
Vanadium is a rare, soft, ductile
gray-white element found combined in certain minerals and used mainly to
produce certain alloys. Vanadium resists corrosion due to a protective film
of oxide on the surface. Common oxidation states of vanadium include +2, +3,
+4 and +5.
Applications
Most of the vanadium (about 80%)
produced is used as ferrovanadium or as a steel additive. Mixed with
aluminium in titanium alloys is used in jet engines and high speed
air-frames, and steel alloys are used in axles, crankshafts, gears and other
critical components. Vanadium alloys are also used in nuclear reactors
because vanadium has low neutron-adsorption abilities and it doesn not deform
in creeping under high temperatures.
Vanadium oxide (V2O5)
is used as a catalyst in manufacturing sulfuric acid and maleic anhydride and
in making ceramics. It is added to glass to produce green or blue tint. Glass
coated with vanadium dioxide (VO2) can block infrared radiation at
some specific temperature.
Vanadium in the environment
Vanadium is never found unbound in
nature. Vanadium occurs in about 65 different minerals among which are
patronite, vanadinite, carnotite and bauxite. Vanadium occurs in carbon
containing deposits such as crude oil, coal, oil shale and tar sands.
Various vanadium ores are known but none is mined as such for the metal, which is generally obtained as a byproducts of other ores. The largest resources of vanadium are to be found in South Africa and in Russia. World production of vanadium ore is around 45.000 tonnes a year. Production of the metal itself comes to about 7000 tonnes per year. Watering is an important way in which vanadium is redistributed around the environment because venedates are generally very soluble.
Vanadium is abundant in most
soils, in variable amounts, and it is taken up by plants at levels that
reflect its availability.
In biology, a vanadium atom is an
essential component of some enzymes, particularly the vanadium nitrogenase
used by some nitrogen-fixing microorganisms.
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thanks to lentech
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