Blog

Vanadium is the 23rd element in the periodic table.
Metal vanadium is gray-black, but it can form coordination complexes of different valence states, and can see the strong characteristic colors of vanadium in different valence states. For example, vanadium salts with +2 valence are generally purple, +3 valence vanadium salts are green, +4 valence is light blue, +5 valence vanadium pentoxide is usually red…these colorful vanadium Compounds that provide us with a wide variety of pigments. If vanadium salt is added to glass, it can produce very beautiful glass, and it can produce a variety of colored inks when added to ink. What’s even more amazing is that vanadium salts can also change the color of the blood of some animals: the blood of higher animals contains iron ions, so it appears red; the blood of lower animals contains copper ions, so it appears blue; The blood of some animals contains trivalent vanadium ions, so the blood of these animals is green.

Not only that, people can also change the oxidation state of vanadium by adding or exchanging ligands. When the ligand changes, the energy of the charge transfer transition of the vanadium complex will be changed at the same time, which will eventually lead to a change in the color of the vanadium complex. Exhibits numerous color variations of vanadium salts.

The research on vanadium-containing compounds at home and abroad has a history of more than 20 years, and the early vanadium was mainly used to improve the performance of steel. Regardless of the similar appearance of metal vanadium and iron, both are gray-black, but vanadium is much harder than iron, and it is much “cooler” than iron at room temperature. It will not be easily oxidized by other substances, and it is not afraid of water and various dilute acids. And lye corrosion, is a better quality material than iron. However, vanadium is abundant in nature, but it is extremely scattered, and there are almost no deposits with high content. Vanadium can be seen in seawater, some marine organisms, magnetite, asphalt, meteorites, and the spectral lines of the sun. However, we cannot achieve large-scale mining like iron ore, because there is no vanadium ore that gathers in large quantities like iron ore, and it is still very unrealistic to replace steel with vanadium. However, people have also discovered other applications of vanadium. Just adding a few percent of vanadium to steel can greatly improve the performance of steel, such as greatly increasing the elasticity and strength of steel, making steel resistant to high temperature and extreme cold , and then in the automobile, aviation, railway, electronic technology, defense industry and other sectors, vanadium began to gradually appear.

With the deepening of research, people also found that vanadium has more new applications, such as vanadium battery, which is one of the excellent green storage batteries with strong development momentum. Its manufacturing, use and disposal process will not produce harmful substances to the environment, and it can be discharged with high current density. For renewable energy power generation, vanadium batteries are ideal substitutes for lead-acid batteries. They can be used as backup power sources for buildings, airports, program-controlled switching stations, and supporting energy storage devices for clean power generation systems such as solar energy. They can also provide power for submarines, ocean-going ships and Used for power grid peak regulation, etc.