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Vanadium protects health - provides medicines - assists surgery - controls pollution

Throughout the 20th century vanadium has played an important part in industry to protect the environment, reduce pollution and produce materials of benefit to health.

Vanadium catalysts remove harmful constituents from effluents and natural gas

In the 1920s Philip Stacey Lewis, a young PhD from Liverpool University, England working at a zinc smelting plant in South West England, found that vanadium pentoxide could be used to catalyse the conversion of SO2 to SO3 which could be made into sulphuric acid and was unaffected by arsenic compounds which poison platinum catalysts. At that time the sulphur dioxide from the zinc plant was polluting the surrounding countryside but by the use of vanadium pentoxide to catalyse this reaction this pollution could be prevented. The discovery, which had been made independently some years earlier in Germany, enabled vanadium pentoxide to replace platinum in the UK production of sulphuric acid. Vanadium therefore became essential in the efficient production of wheat and other crops which use fertilisers made with sulphuric acid.

In the 1990s Vanadium continues to have an important role in environmental protection due to the ability of its compounds to catalyse redox and other chemical reactions through which it contributes to a number of processes which remove toxic and corrosive compounds from effluents.

Vanadium removes hydrogen sulphide from natural gas

Poisonous, objectionable and corrosive hydrogen sulphide, a constituent of natural gas from many oil wells and present in the effluents from sewage plant is removed by the catalytic action of a vanadium salt. the natural gas is washed in a scrubber through which an alkaline solution containing a pentavalent vanadium salt is circulated. the sulphur is converted to a sodium sulphide and then to elemental sulphur which is sold as a by-product. The vanadium which is reduced during the process is oxidised back to the initial state and recirculated.

If natural gas containing sulphur is not treated with vanadium the gas can cause severe corrosion of pipelines or require expensive special alloy steels to prevent corrosion.

Vanadium removes nitrogen oxides from fossil fuel power plant effluents

In processes for the removal of poisonous nitrogen oxides from the effluents of fossil fuel electric power generating plant, ammonia is fed into the gases which are passed over trays of honeycombs of catalysts containing vanadium chemicals. These convert the nitrogen oxides to harmless nitrogen and water vapour which then enter the atmosphere.

Vanadium enables synthetic rubber to be produced from ethylene and propylene

Vanadium oxytrichloride is used to synthesise caoutchouc in the production of artificial rubber. The rubber is used extensively for coating chemical reaction tanks and roofing as well as for domestic and sporting applications such as golf balls.

Vanadium improves the colour of light from mercury lamps

A combination of vanadium and yttrium oxides has a surface which reacts with short wave light from high density mercury to emit wavelengths at the red end of the spectrum. By applying a coating of yttrium-vanadium oxides to the surface of high intensity mercury lamps, the emission of the red light together with the characteristically green light emitted from mercury lamps results in a high intensity white light.

Vanadium enables Nylon 6,6 to be produced

Adipic acid used in the production of nylon 6,6 is made with hydrogen obtained from methane in a process employing alkali vanadates.

Carbonic acid formed from carbon dioxide produced during the reaction can give rise to severe corrosion of steel in the plant but this is inhibited by the vanadium compounds.

Vanadium enables production of fertilisers

Vanadium pentoxide is used as a catalyst for the oxidation of sulphur dioxide to trioxide in the manufacture of sulphuric acid which is the basis for the production of fertilisers throughout the world. Without these fertilisers the production of cereals and other foods on the scale required to maintain basic food production would not be possible.

Vanadium the "Green" metal

Vanadium pentoxide protects our eyes, our bodies, our food and our medicines from the sun's harmful ultraviolet rays.

Vanadium pentoxide in glass for telescopes, cameras and other optical instruments in used to absorb ultraviolet light to protect the operators and to prevent fogging of photographs. The lenses are mounted in a vanadium-titanium alloy having a similar coefficient of thermal expansion to the glass of the lenses.

Vanadium pentoxide absorbs ultraviolet light and when added to the glass or plastic used for spectacles it protects the eyes from the harmful effects of these rays.

Glass containing vanadium pentoxide is used in buildings to protect occupants from ultraviolet light.

When Vanadium pentoxide is added to glass or plastic used for bottles and jars, the absoption of the ultraviolet rays protects medicine and food from premature oxidation, photolysis and photodegradation.

Vanadium salts for decorative ceramics

Vanadium salts together with other chemicals are well known for the brilliant orange and blue colours which they can produce in ceramics and enamels. they continue to be used to produce these colours in all kinds of products.

Vanadium salts for textiles and leather

Vanadium oxide reacts with organic compounds to produce dyes for textiles and leather which resist fading in strong sunlight. The famous black anthrecene dyes depend on the vanadium catalytic conversion.

Vanadium in power generation

The growing concern over pollution is promoting the use of hydrogen storage batteries for many current applications, including electric cars. Hydrogen storage batteries which use vanadium alloys to store the hydrogen have a higher unit capacity and give less pollution than conventional batteries.

Vanadium cab also be used as an anode in batteries and enables hem to operate at temperatures down to -40ºC.

Vanadium improves the colour quality of television and computer screens

Vanadium phosphor emits a red light when bombarded with electrons and is used in the coatings of television and computer screens to improve the quality of red light.

Vanadium enables plastics to be produced from oil and coal

The redox-catalytic activity of vanadium oxide enables the controlled catalytic oxidation of napthalene and ortho-oxylene to phthalic-anhydride and of butane and benzene to maleic-anhydride to take place. Both compounds are essential monomers in the production of polyesters and plastics.

Vanadium in certain plastics produces brilliant and stable colours.