Major Vanadium Producers

Bonne-Neuber, a. (ed.) (1967) Vanadium, Teil A undB. In Gmelins Handbuch der Anorganischen Chemie, Auflage 8, Verlag-Chemie, Weinheim. 

(1961) Vanadium. A Materials Survey. US Bureau of Mines, Information Circular No. 8060, US Dept, of the Interior, Washington, D.C. 

(1983) Vanadium A Mineral Commodity Review. Minerals Bureau, Republic of South Africa, Report No. 4/82. 

Gulf Chemical and Metallurgical Corp. (spent catalyst recycling) 

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Vanadium is recovered from several sources vanadium minerals, vanadium-bearing phosphates, boder residues, and spent vanadium catalysts. One major vanadium mineral is patronite, a greenish-black, amorphous sulfide ore used extensively for many years to produce vanadium. This mineral, found in Peru, has depleted gradually. The metal also is recovered commercially from carnotite and roscoelite. 

Vanadium is widely distributed in nature, it forms up to 0.05% of the earth s crust and there are over 60 vanadium ores. Vanadium occurs widely in coal and certain petroleums, especially those from Venezuela (up to 1%), in the form of oxovanadium(rv) porphyrins. The major world producers of vanadium in recent years have been the United States, South Aftica, and Finland. 

Ferrovanadium. The steel industry accounts for the majority of the world s consumption of vanadium as an additive to steel. It is added in the steelmaking process as a ferrovanadium alloy [12604-58-9] which is produced commercially by the reduction of vanadium ore, slag, or technical-grade oxide with carbon, ferrosiHcon, or aluminum. The product grades, which may contain 35—80 wt % vanadium, are classified according to their vanadium content. The consumer use and grade desired dictate the choice of reductant. 

The same cannot be said for the odd elements nitrogen, fluorine, sodium, aluminium, phosphorus, chlorine, potassium, vanadium, manganese and cobalt. The quantities produced depend significantly on the initial composition in the sense that a star with low metallicity is likely to produce fewer odd elements than a star with high metallicity. At the root of this tendency lies the fact that the major part of the metals (CNO) available to the star at birth are transformed into N, then Ne, via the chain reaction... 

The spray method was used to produce alumina pigments doped with Cr, Mn, and Co. In these experiments, Al(.vec-OBu)3 was mixed with solutions of the corresponding metal nitrates in. veobutoxide, the resulting liquids were nebulized, and then the droplets were hydrolyzed (76). The major purpose of these studies was to obtain inorganic pigments and to evaluate their color properties by altering the amount of dopants in the aluminum oxide matrix. For the same reason, the vanadium... 

Block copolymers of propylene with ethylene have been produced in commercial polymerization processes using heterogeneous Ziegler-Natta catalysts. In all processes the block copolymers are produced in small concentrations, and the major products are homopolymers. Well-defined block copolymers free of homopolymer impurities can be prepared with catalysts exhibiting a living polymerization character. In this section we deal with the synthesis of well-defined block copolymers using the living polypropylene which has been prepared with soluble vanadium-based catalysts. 

Studies of the oxidation of organic sulfides with amino acid-derived ligands in acetonitrile revealed very little difference between the mechanism of their oxidation and that of halides, except for one major exception. Despite the fact that acid conditions are still required for the catalytic cycle, hydroxide or an equivalent is not produced in the catalytic cycle, so no proton is consumed [48], As a consequence, there is no requirement for maintenance of acid levels during a catalyzed reaction. Peroxo complexes of vanadium are well known to be potent insulin-mimetic compounds [49,50], Their efficacy arises, at least in part, from an oxidative mechanism that enhances insulin receptor activity, and possibly the activity of other protein tyrosine kinases activity [51]. With peroxovanadates, this is an irreversible function. Apparently, there is no direct effect on the function of the kinase, but rather there is inhibition of protein tyrosine phosphatase activity. The phosphatase regulates kinase activity by dephosphorylating the kinase. Oxidation of an active site thiol in the phosphatase prevents this down-regulation of kinase activity. Presumably, this sulfide oxidation proceeds by the process outlined above. 

The preparation of water-soluble starch is the major practical aim of higher-level irradiations of starch. If starch alone is irradiated the effect of irradiation is dose-dependent, but the dose should not exceed 20-30 X 106 rad, otherwise dextrins are produced.232 233 The irradiation of starch in aqueous solution after pretreatment with hypochlorous acid is a patented procedure.234 Irradiation with a similar dose in the presence of vanadium pentaoxide has also been patented.235... 

As a specific example of the correlations we have observed, our experimental results demonstrate that the reactions of vanadium and niobium oxide cluster cations with methanol lead to dehydrogenation of methanol under single collision conditions producing neutral formaldehyde [16]. Formaldehyde is, indeed, a major product formed from methanol over condensed-phase vanadia surfaces [17]. Another study conducted in our laboratory showed that,, Clj products were formed during the reaction between certain clusters and CCl, leaving phosgene (COClj) as the most likely neutral product [15, 18]. The decomposition of... 

Petroleum coke is used principally as a fuel or, after calcining, for carbon electrodes. The feedstock from which the coke is produced controls the coke properties, especially sulfur, nitrogen, and metal content. A concentration effect tends to deposit the majority of the sulfur, nitrogen, and metals in the coke. Cokes exceeding about 2.5% sulfur content and 200 ppm vanadium are mainly used, environmental regulations permitting, for fuel or fuel additives. The properties of coke for non-fuel use include a low sulfur, metal, and ash content as well as a definable physical structure. 

Here it is my purpose simply to point out the directions that UNF chemistry took following the period covered by this review. Two major discoveries had great influence. The first was the demonstration, by genetic techniques, that alternative nitrogenases existed in which molybdenum is replaced by vanadium or iron. This led to renewed interest in producing ammonia from iron... 

Within the United States milling capacity is estimated at 19 million pounds of vanadium. A new producer has announced plans to enter the business in 1976, bringing domestic production capacity to 21.1 million pounds. These figures are well in excess of the 1973 estimated demand of 12.5 million pounds for the United States and Canada, and the production is adequate to satisfy the projected demand of 16.1 million pounds in 1980. In addition to basic vanadium oxide producers, a major domestic converter of ferro-vanadium is now producing millions of pounds of vanadium per year for sale in the United States from imported, duty free, steel slags. 

The steel industry in the United States has not yet installed the equipment necessary to fabricate the new large diameter (over 42" O.D.) line pipe being specified for many major line pipe projects. On the other hand, Canada, Japan, West Germany and Italy are well equipped to produce the pipe and are expected to be the major recipients of line pipe orders. As a result, increasing demand for vanadium in the United States is expected to be modest and, in the absence of other major developments, such as automotive HSLA use, will remain at 3% per year through 1980. The potential application of HSLA steels to automobile bumpers, frames, engine mounts, etc., could increase United States vanadium consumption by 10-15% or 1 to 1.5 million pounds per year. However, competition from other materials precludes an accurate appraisal at this time. 

Consider whether the natural origins of vanadium account for the amounts observed. The major natural sources are marine aerosols produced by the bursting of bubbles at the sea surface and continental dust from wind erosion of rocks and soil. Some vanadium would also be injected into the atmosphere by volcanoes, but in the treatment below this is a minor perturbation on the dust contribution. 

Hydroxyapatite coatings applied to porous titanium alloys significantly reduced the titanium and aluminium releases, but had no important effect on vanadium release, as shown in Figure 9.17 (Ducheyne and Healy, 1988). No major change was produced in the ion release kinetics from Co-Cr alloys. 

Canada who developed Sclaire catalyst based on vanadium (V) instead of titanium (Ti). A majority of commercial polyolefins (POs) are still produced with heterogeneous, multi-sited, modified Z-N catalysts, e.g., TiCL) on MgCl2 support. 

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