Vanadium Reduction

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 is in important additive to high strength steel. It is also used as a catalyst in the production of sulfuric acid. Vanadium in water is almost always present as an oxo anion.

Vanadium (vanadate) is present at low concentrations in many groundwaters that also contain arsenic. Vanadate loads almost quantitatively onto arsenic selective medias and also onto the chromate selective weakly basic anion resin SIR-700.