Vanadium suboxide

Vanadium Suboxide, V20.—The existence of this oxide is extremely doubtful. It is said to be the brown substance first formed... 

Vanadium suboxide, V20, forms as a brown coating when metallic vanadium is exposed to the air at ordinary temperatures. At higher temperatures it is transformed to the other oxides. It forms no salts. 

Use of excess air levels of 5 percent or less has been shown to reduce fuel ash corrosion in furnaces, most likely by stabilizing the vanadium as a refractory suboxide, VO2 or V2O3. Utility plants have had some success using this method to control vanadium ash corrosion. However, practical application of excess air control in refinery and chemical plant operations is difficult, and has not been particularly successful. Problems with particulates, smoke, pollution, and flame control are encountered unless the necessary expensive control systems and operator attention are constantly available. 

In the case of vanadium, the suboxide, vanadium monoxide, would be more volatile than carbon monoxide except at very high carbon concentrations in the metal. The removal of the residual oxygen from this metal by carbon deoxidation is, therefore, difficult. In the case of niobium and tantalum, the partial pressure of carbon monoxide is higher than that of niobium monoxide or tantalum monoxide, even when the residual carbon concentration in the metal is as low as 200 ppm. It may therefore be expected that practically all the oxygen would be removed by evaporation of carbon monoxide without any metal loss from niobium and tantalum metals containing both oxygen and carbon. 

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