VANADIUM

VANADIUM

Subject: Geography

Context:

Exploration being carried out by Geological Survey of India (GSI) has placed Arunachal Pradesh on the vanadium map of the country.

Concept:

• 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 (passivation) somewhat stabilizes the free metal against further oxidation.

Deposits over world countries:

• Vanadium occurs naturally in about 65 minerals and in fossil fuel deposits.
• It is produced in China and Russia from steel smelter slag.
• Other countries produce it either from magnetite directly, flue dust of heavy oil, or as a byproduct of uranium mining.

Uses of Vanadium:

• Vanadium alloys are durable in extreme temperature and environments, and are corrosion-resistant.
• Its addition improves the tensile strength of steel and of reinforcing bars used for buildings, tunnels and bridges.
• vanadium, a high-value metal used in strengthening steel and titanium.
• It is mainly used to produce specialty steel alloys such as high-speed tool steels, and some aluminium alloys.
• The most important industrial vanadium compound, vanadium pentoxide, is used as a catalyst for the production of sulfuric acid.
• Apart from increasing fuel-efficiency in automotive and aviation industries due to its high strength-to-weight ratio, the metal forms the integral part of vanadium redox batteries that have the least ecological impact in energy storage.

Toxicity:

• Large amounts of vanadium ions are found in a few organisms, possibly as a toxin. The oxide and some other salts of vanadium have moderate toxicity.
• Particularly in the ocean, vanadium is used by some life forms as an active center of enzymes, such as the vanadium bromoperoxidase of some ocean algae.

About the findings in India:

The expected grade of vanadium mineralisation in Arunachal Pradesh is comparable to the important vanadium deposits of the world. The largest deposits are in China, followed by Russia and South Africa,” according to the specialists.