What is "vanadium"

Vanadium \Va*na"di*um\, n. [NL., fr. Icel. Vanad[=i]s, a surname of the Scandinavian goddess Freya.] (Chem.) A rare element of the nitrogen-phosphorus group, found combined, in vanadates, in certain minerals, and reduced as an infusible, grayish-white metallic powder. It is intermediate between the metals and the non-metals, having both basic and acid properties. Symbol V (or Vd, rarely). Atomic weight 50.94 (C12=12.000).

rare metallic element, 1833, named 1830 by Swedish chemist Nils Gabriel Sefström (1787-1845), from Old Norse Vanadis, one of the names of the Norse beauty goddess Freyja (perhaps from PIE *wen- (1) "to desire, strive for," which would connect it to Venus); the metal perhaps so called for of its colorful compounds (an earlier name for it was erythronium, for the redness of its salts when heated). Related: Vanadous; vanadious.

n. A chemical element, (''symbol'' V) with an atomic number of 23; it is a transition metal, used in the production of special steels.

n. a soft silvery white toxic metallic element used in steel alloys; it occurs in several complex minerals including carnotite and vanadinite [syn: V, atomic number 23]

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.

Andrés Manuel del Río discovered compounds of vanadium in 1801 in Mexico by analyzing a new lead-bearing mineral he called "brown lead", and presumed its qualities were due to the presence of a new element, which he named erythronium (derived from Greek for "red") since, upon heating, most of the salts turned red. Four years later, however, he was (erroneously) convinced by other scientists that erythronium was identical to chromium. Chlorides of vanadium were generated in 1830 by Nils Gabriel Sefström who thereby proved that a new element was involved, which he named "vanadium" after the Scandinavian goddess of beauty and fertility, Vanadís ( Freyja). Both names were attributed to the wide range of colors found in vanadium compounds. Del Rio's lead mineral was later renamed vanadinite for its vanadium content. In 1867 Henry Enfield Roscoe obtained the pure element.

Vanadium occurs naturally in about 65 different minerals and in fossil fuel deposits. It is produced in China and Russia from steel smelter slag; other countries produce it either from the flue dust of heavy oil, or as a byproduct of uranium mining. It is mainly used to produce specialty steel alloys such as high-speed tool steels. The most important industrial vanadium compound, vanadium pentoxide, is used as a catalyst for the production of sulfuric acid.

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.

Vanadium was an Italian heavy metal band from Milan. It was one of the first heavy rock bands to appear on the Peninsula and is considered among the most successful European exponents of the genre.