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Vanadium is used mostly as an alloying element for iron. "Vanadium steel" is a common alloy used for tools like wrenches, socket sets, etc.
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Bottle of antique vanadium lumps.
A lot of people seem to have an element or two in their attic. Much to my delight, after a few decades they start to wonder why, and when they hear about my periodic table project, they decide that I can give their elements a good home where they will be lovingly cared for and displayed for the enjoyment of the whole world. My interview on NPR's Science Friday radio show general several donations like this, including a highly radioactive Fiestaware bowl. But I was amazed when the producer of the show, Charles Bergquist, himself said "oh by the way, I have these elements that have been sitting around...". He donated vanadium, which is the second-hardest-to-get element in the first complete row of 18 elements (second only to scandium, which is truly hard to get).
The lumps were all covered with a thick layer of oxide from decades of exposure to the air, but I've scraped off one of them so you can see the solid metal that remains inside each lump. They are far from consumed by oxidation. For the time being I'm going to leave them alone, because cleaning them would only accelerate the oxidation process. Some day I plan to find a source for sealable clear mylar bags that I can fill with helium to preserve these sorts of samples. Then I'll carefully clean all the oxide off and seal the shiny lumps up in a bag.
Source: Charles Bergquist
Contributor: Charles Bergquist
Acquired: 14 August, 2002
Price: Donated
Size: 0.1
Purity: >99%
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Tiny cylinder.
Ed bought half a dozen different tiny metal cylinders from David Franco, intending to make some kind of puzzle out of them (Ed's a puzzle person). But they turned out to be too irregular, so he donated them to the table.
Source: David Franco
Contributor: Ed Pegg Jr
Acquired: 19 August, 2002
Price: Donated
Size: 0.2"
Purity: >99%
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 Vanadium emerald.
This is a simply lovely pale green emerald which gets its green color from an impurity of vanadium, as discussed in Uncle Tungsten. It was sold with the intention that it be cut into a jewel, but I think it's lovely just the way it is.
The sellers, Ray Gaetan and Jill St. Michael, supplied the following information about vanadium emeralds:
Emeralds vary in color from light to deep green. It's commonly thought that an emerald's color derives from the presence of chromium and/or vanadium, replacing some of the aluminum in the mineral's structure. The stone can, however, lose its color when heated strongly.
The emerald belongs to the beryl family of minerals that include aquamarine (the March birthstone), heliodor and morganite. Beryl, or beryllium aluminum silicate in chemical jargon, is a six-sided symmetrical crystal. Beryl contains beryllium, aluminum, silicon and oxygen.
Emeralds are most frequently found inside a form of shale -- a fine grained sedimentary rock. Emerald-bearing shale has undergone recrystallization due to changes in the physical environment such as pressure and temperature. Colombia produces the largest and highest quality emeralds. They were also discovered, and subsequently mined, in the Ural Mountains of Russia around 1830. In the United States, emeralds can be found in North Carolina. Around the world, they also occur in Zambia, Brazil, Pakistan, Norway, Austria, India, Malagasy and Australia.
Emerald is a variety of the species beryl. Its chemical composition is a combination of beryllium aluminum silicate and it appears as a colorless crystal in its pure state. Trace elements present in the chemical mix cause the colors of the various beryl varieties. The elements that can cause the green in beryl are chromium, vanadium or iron. In order to be considered a true emerald, the Gemological Institute of America states that a beryl crystal must be colored green by the element chromium or vanadium or both.
http://webmineral.com/data/Beryl.shtml
Source: eBay seller rrgaetan@charter.net
Contributor: Theodore Gray
Acquired: 22 August, 2002
Price: $10
Size: 0.15"
Purity: <2%
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Vanadium wrench.
This wrench is presumably a fairly standard chrome-vanadium steel alloy. Why they chose to label it as a "Vanadium" wrench I don't know, but it's good enough for me to put it here.
Source: eBay seller sammy13
Contributor: Theodore Gray
Acquired: 28 August, 2002
Price: $10
Size: 8"
Purity: <2%
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Sample from the Everest Element Set.
Up until the early 1990's a company in Russia sold a periodic table collection with element samples. At some point their American distributor sold off the remaining stock to a man who is now selling them on eBay. The samples (excepted gasses) weight about 0.25 grams each, and the whole set comes in a very nice wooden box with a printed periodic table in the lid.
To learn more about the set you can visit my page about element collecting for a general description and information about how to buy one, or you can see photographs of all the samples from the set displayed on my website in a periodic table layout or with bigger pictures in numerical order.
Source: Rob Accurso
Contributor: Rob Accurso
Acquired: 7 February, 2003
Price: Donated
Size: 0.2"
Purity: >99%
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