page_title: Vanadium
section_title: Applications
hierarchical_section_title: Vanadium / Applications
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Knarre bzw. Ratsche der Firma Gedore, 1/4" Ausführung. Aufschrift: Vorderseite: GEDORE No. 2093U-3 GERMANY; Rückseite:GEDORE-VANADIUM SIEnglish: A socket wrench
context_page_description: Vanadium is a chemical element with the 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 somewhat stabilizes the free metal against further oxidation.
  Andrés Manuel del Río discovered compounds of vanadium in 1801 in Mexico 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 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. The name was based on the wide range of colors found in vanadium compounds. Del Rio's lead mineral was ultimately named vanadinite for its vanadium content. In 1867 Henry Enfield Roscoe obtained the pure element.
  Vanadium occurs naturally in about 65 minerals and in fossil fuel deposits. It is produced in China and Russia from steel smelter slag.
caption: Tool made from vanadium steel
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