Vanadium

“ Vanadium is a light-coloured metal of specific gravity 5.5. It is not volatilized even when heated to redness in a current of hydrogen, and it burns readily to the pentoxide when heated in oxygen. It dissolves slowly in hydrofluoric acid and in nitric acid, the solution turning blue ”

“ An oxychloride, VOCl3, is known for vanadium, which is the perfect analogue of phosphorus oxychloride. It was formerly considered to be vanadium chloride, for just as in the case of uranium (Chapter XXI.) , its lower oxide, VO, was considered to be the metal, because it is exceedingly difficultly reduced—even potassium does not remove all the oxygen, besides which it has a metallic appearance, and decomposes acids like a metal; in a word, it simulates a metal in every respect. Vanadium oxychloride is obtained by heating the trioxide, V2O3, mixed with charcoal, in a current of hydrogen ”

“ Still more costly is vanadium bronze, which is made by adding ammonium vanadate to a solution of 2 parts of copper sulphate and 1 part of ammonium chloride with continual stirring, until the precipitate no longer re-dissolves on stirring. The liquid is then heated for several hours to about 35° C., when vanadium bronze separates in golden yellow scales. These are collected on a filter, washed and dried When ground with oil or gum solution they can be used as a red gold bronze. The colour is unaltered by the air. ”

“ The vanadium-bearing rock is the lower sandstone. It is a light to dull green, and fine-grained. Occasionally splotches of carnotite are found in the cracks and fissures, but the uranium content is too small to be worth saving.
According to Hillebrand, the green vanadium mineral to which the sandstone owes its color is not a chlorite, but is closely related to the mica, roscoelite. The ore mined has an average content of 11⁄2 per cent. V2O5. These low-grade roscoelite deposits can be mined at a profit, because they are large and easily worked. ”

“ The crystals are usually six-sided prisms terminated by the basal planes, but are sometimes modified by numerous pyramidal planes which exhibit parallel hemihedrism. Rounded crystals and groups also occur. The colour is usually light brown or yellow, but crystals from Arizona are bright red. Owing to isomorphous replacement of the vanadium by phosphorus and arsenic, the specific gravity varies from 6.6 to 7.2; a variety containing much arsenic is called endlichite. The hardness is 3. The mineral is one of secondary formation in veins of lead ore. ”

“ It is a fuming liquid, which is soluble in benzene and in acetic acid; it dissolves in water to form a deep blue solution. Several oxychlorides have also been described. Vanadium carbide, VC, was prepared by H, Moissan (Comptes rendus, 1896, 122, p. 1297) by heating vanadium pentoxide and carbon for a few minutes in the electric furnace. It is a volatile compound which burns when heated in oxygen and which is unacted upon by sulphuric and hydrochloric acids. ”

“ It absorbs nitrogen when heated in a current of that gas, forming a nitride. Vanadium may be detected by converting it into the pentoxide, which on passing sulphuretted hydrogen through its acid solution becomes reduced to the dioxide, the solution at the same time becoming lavender blue in colour; or if zinc be used as a reducing agent, the solution becomes at first green and ultimately blue. ”

“ He found eventually that it was a French steel and that there was vanadium in it. We tried every steel maker in America—not one could make vanadium steel. I sent to England for a man who understood how to make the steel commercially. The next thing was to get a plant to turn it out. That was another problem. Vanadium requires 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The ordinary furnace could not go beyond 2,700 degrees. I found a small steel company in Canton, Ohio. I offered to guarantee them against loss if they would run a heat for us. ”

“ This action was based both on the evidence originally submitted and on the advertising matter being sent out by the company at the time.
Briefly, Vanadiol is said to contain a compound of vanadium with oxygen and chlorin, which gives up its oxygen to readily oxidizable substances, such as the blood. In addition to this compound it contains an oxidizing agent (sodium chlorate) which is said to serve as a source of oxygen, so that, according to the theory of the promoters, Vanadiol acts in the animal system as an oxygen-carrier. ”

“ By decomposing vanadate of ammonia with infusion of galls, a liquid is obtained of a perfectly black hue, which flows freely from the pen, is rendered blue by acids, is insoluble in dilute alkalis, and resists the action of chlorine. Whenever the metal vanadium shall become more abundant, as it probably may ere long, we shall possess the means of making an ink, at a moderate price, much superior to the tannate and gallate of iron. ”

“ Upon the completion of the discovery work on the vanadium claim the compromise agreed upon in this camp-fire talk was made the order of the day. For a week they combed the foot-hills and hogbacks of the western range faithfully, working slowly up to the region included in Daddy Longbeard’s magic circle, and finding nothing in the way of rare metals save in one place where, in a mass of finely brecciated granite and porphyry they discovered a lot of thin quartz veinlets carrying a little molybdenite from which the metal molybdenum, an alloy for tool steel, is extracted. ”

“ For the extraction of vanadium from this latter mineral Wöhler recommends the following method. The finely powdered mineral is mixed with one-third of its weight of nitre and the mixture kept at a dull red heat for an hour. The ignited mass is powdered and lixiviated with water, which extracts the potash salts of the oxides V2O5, CrO3, MoO3, As2O5, P2O5, and SiO2. The filtered solution is almost neutralized with nitric acid, but not completely, or else some of the V2O5 would be reduced by the nitrous acid to lower oxides ”

“ They showed further [659] —from evidence independent of that obtained by Young in 1892 [660] —the remarkable conspicuousness in spot-spectra of vanadium lines excessively faint in the Fraunhofer spectrum. Lockyer's "unknown lines" may probably thus be accounted for. They represent absorption, not by new, but by scarce elements, especially, Father Cortie thinks, those with atomic weights of about 50. The circumstance of their development in solar commotions, largely to the exclusion of iron, is none the less curious; but it cannot be explained by any process of dissociation. ”

“ In it, as also in tantalite, pyrochlore, yttro-tantalite, and a few other rare minerals, it is constantly associated with tantalum, which was discovered by Ekkeberg in 1802. Both metals, with vanadium, form a kind of appendage to the nitrogen group of elements. Like these they are capable of forming acid pentoxides and corresponding chlorides and oxychlorides. ”

“ Continental sought to introduce the making of ferrovanadium by the aluminothermic process, which it claimed was more efficient and economical than respondents' method.↑ The Sherman Act, §§ 1-2, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1-2, 15 U.S.C.A. §§ 1, 2, provide in pertinent part:↑ The complaint alleged that VCA sold approximately two-thirds of all ferrovanadium and vanadium oxide sold by defendants (which was said to amount to approximately 99% of all ferrovanadium and vanadium oxide sold and consumed in the United States) , while Electro Met Sales (a Carbide subsidiary) sold approximately one-third. ”

“ The main use of vanadium is in steel. It is used where great toughness and torsional strength are required, as in automobile parts, gears, piston rods, tubes, boiler plates, transmission shafts, bolts, gun barrels, gun shields and forgings of any kind which have to withstand heavy wear and tear. ”

“ In the absence of bodies, such as molybdic acid, which are reduced by sulfurous acid or hydrogen sulfid, the vanadic acid may also be determined by reducing it with one of these reagents and, after removing the excess by boiling, titrating the vanadium tetroxid with potassium permanganate. When vanadic and phosphoric acids occur together the former may be first reduced to tetroxid with sulfurous acid, and after expelling excess of this reagent, the phosphoric acid may be separated with molybdate solution and removed by filtration. ”

“ Do you know that if that vault is taken by either an electric-arc or an oxy-acetylene blow-pipe, I will be suspected?”
“I didn’t think of that.”
“It is a fact! You see the police and the private agencies know a man by his work. How can we take that vault in a new way? How can I go through three layers of vanadium steel?” ”

“ The metal combines with platinum to form an alloy, and with oxygen forms a monoxide, a dioxide, a trioxide, a tetroxide, and a pentoxide, of which the last two act as acid-forming oxides, forming hypovanadic and vanadic compounds. Of the various vanadium salts, ammonium metavanadate, formed by dissolving the pentoxide in ammonium hydrate, is used as a black pigment, frequently with aniline as a dye, and also as the basis of a permanent black ink. ”

“ We have not much news to send you. The book [“Lessons in Elementary Chemistry”] is not yet out. I have this day, however, corrected the last proofs of the Index, and I fully expect that it will be ready (and I hope a great number sold!) before you arrive here.
My new assistant [Mr. Francis Jones] is a very careful and accurate worker. He has with great care determined the atomic weight of vanadium by the loss of weight of VO3 in hydrogen, and curiously enough gets exactly Berzelius’s number of 68·5! This in two experiments on large quantities. ”

“ The natural transition from titanium and vanadium to copper and zinc by means of the elements of the iron group is demonstrated by all the properties of these elements, and in exactly the same manner a transition from zirconium, niobium, and molybdenum to silver, cadmium, and indium, through ruthenium, rhodium, and palladium, is in perfect accordance with fact and with the magnitude of the atomic weights, as also is the position of osmium, iridium, and platinum between tantalum and tungsten on the one side, and gold and mercury on the other. ”

“ These are of great importance, and include manganese, chromium, nickel, tungsten, vanadium, antimony, molybdenum, uranium, and zirconium. Radium is closely associated with uranium and is considered with it. Closely allied with zirconium are thorium and mesothorium, and their treatment therefore closely follows that of zirconium.
The next great group is that of the major metals, other than iron and the ferro-alloy metals: copper, lead, zinc, tin and mercury, and aluminum. Aluminum ores are used not only as sources of the metal, but for the manufacture of refractories and abrasives. ”

“ With it we can get the greatest strength with the least weight, but it would not be good business to let our whole future depend upon being able to get vanadium steel. We have worked out a substitute. All our steels are special, but for every one of them we have at least one, and sometimes several, fully proved and tested substitutes. ”

“ When it was discovered that the volatile chloride which Berzelius had considered was a trichloride and free from oxygen, in reality contained oxygen, and was analogous in constitution to phosphoryl chloride, the whole matter was rapidly cleared up, and the chemical affinities of vanadium to phosphorus, arsenic, and the other members of the trivalent group were established. ”

“ The nature of the scientific labors by which he is chiefly distinguished is set forth in the award of the Royal medal made to him by the Royal Society in 1873, which was "for his various chemical researches, more especially for his investigations of the chemical action of light, and of the combinations of vanadium." ”

“ Within the last three years a number of reports have appeared in the medical press which bear on the treatment of malignant growths in human beings by chemical preparations. The most persuasive and the most insistent claims have been made in connection with the colloidal solutions of certain metalloids and metals, notably selenium, vanadium and copper. ”

“ All phases of the elimination of waste materials are favored by the positive increase in the number of red blood corpuscles and the percentage of hemoglobin, hematogenesis being thereby rendered more perfect. The beneficent effect of nascent (active) oxygen, upon the red corpuscles and upon tissue cells of low vitality are matters of common knowledge. The results obtained from the vanadium derivatives are not drug effects, but are due to improved metabolism, which in turn is due to the removal of microbian toxins, and the general stimulation of cell activity. ”

“ Sampling is quantitative using the two-filter technique described.
NIOSH Manual of Analytical Methods (NMAM) , Fourth Edition, 8/15/94 VANADIUM OXIDES: METHOD 7504, Issue 2, dated 15 August 1994 - Page 6 of 10 For the analytes, biases of spiked samples were determined by assuming the volume of suspension as "true." Biases of generated samples were determined by assuming that the concentration obtained from the ICP-AES analysis of monitor AAWP filters was the "true" concentration. Instrumental imprecision increases with smaller depositions. ”

“ A fact which may have the greatest significance is that titanium and vanadium have been found both in sun-spots and in the remarkable variable Mira Ceti, a star which every eleven months, or thereabout, flames up with great brilliancy and then sinks back to invisibility with the naked eye. It has been suggested that sun-spots are indications of the beginning of a process in the sun which will be intensified until it falls into the state of such a star as Mira. Stars very far advanced in evolution, without showing variability, also exhibit similar spectra ”