Vanadium was discovered in 1801 by Spanish-Mexican mineralogist Andrés Manuel del Río and named panchromium or erythronium. However, it was subsequently considered to be impure chromium.

The element was rediscovered in 1830 by Swedish chemist Nils Gabriel Sefström and named after Vanadis, the Scandinavian goddess of beauty and youth. The name was suggested because of the beautiful colors of vanadium compounds in solution.
English chemist Henry Enfield Roscoe first isolated the metal in 1867 by hydrogen reduction of vanadium dichloride.

American chemists John Wesley Marden and Malcolm N. Rich obtained it in 1925 in a purity of 99.7 percent by reducing vanadium pentoxide V₂O₅ with metallic calcium.

At the beginning of the 20th century, it was discovered that vanadium significantly increases the strength of steel. Henry Ford used it in the Model T (1908), which established vanadium's reputation as an alloying metal.

Today, vanadium is important for redox flow batteries, high-performance steels, and special alloys.

The most stable artificial isotopes are ⁴⁸V with a half-life of 16 days and ⁴⁹V with a half-life of 330 days. These are used as tracers. All other isotopes and nuclear isomers are very unstable and decay in minutes or seconds.

90 percent of vanadium demand comes from the steel industry, where vanadium is used in various steels and alloys for tools, axles, crankshafts, gears, and other critical components, as well as in jet engines and aircraft jets.

Vanadium is becoming increasingly important for vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFB). VRFBs are particularly suitable for large-scale renewable energy storage facilities, as they enable highly secure and environmentally friendly medium- and long-term energy storage. However, the limited availability of vanadium as a raw material is a disadvantage of VRFB technology.

Other applications include high-tech applications such as superconductors, nuclear reactors, catalysts, ceramics, and glass.

China is the world leader in vanadium mining, with a 60 percent share of the global market. The most important company is Pangang in Sichuan, a major titanium ore producer.

In Russia, vanadium is produced as a by-product of steel and iron ore processing in the Urals. The EVRAZ Group is a key global player alongside VSMPO-AVISMA.

The Bushveld Complex in South Africa is another important source of vanadium mining. Brazil and Australia also mine vanadium.

Global annual production is around 100,000 tons.

Crystal structure of vanadium, a = 302.4 pm

Vanadium is a non-magnetic, tough, malleable, and distinctly steel-blue heavy metal with a density of 6.11 g/cm³. Pure vanadium is relatively soft, but becomes harder when mixed with other elements and then has high mechanical strength. In most properties, it resembles its neighbor in the periodic table, titanium. The melting point of pure vanadium is 1910 °C, but this is significantly increased by impurities such as carbon. With a carbon content of 10%, it is around 2700 °C. Like chromium and niobium, vanadium crystallizes in a body-centered cubic crystal structure with the space group and the lattice parameter a = 302.4 pm, as well as two formula units per unit cell.

Below a transition temperature of 5.13 K, vanadium becomes a superconductor. Like pure vanadium, alloys of vanadium with gallium, niobium, and zirconium are also superconductive. At temperatures below 5.13 K, vanadium, like the vanadium group metals niobium and tantalum, exhibits a previously unexplained spontaneous electrical polarization in tiny clusters of up to 200 atoms, which is otherwise only found in non-metallic substances.

Vanadium is a base metal and is capable of reacting with many non-metals. When exposed to air, it retains its metallic luster for weeks. When observed over longer periods of time, green rust becomes clearly visible. If vanadium is to be preserved, it must be stored under argon. When heated, it is attacked by oxygen and oxidized to vanadium(V) oxide. While carbon and nitrogen only react with vanadium when white-hot, the reaction with fluorine and chlorine takes place even at low temperatures.

Vanadium is usually stable at room temperature when exposed to acids and bases due to a thin, passivating oxide layer. It is only attacked by hydrofluoric acid and strongly oxidizing acids such as hot nitric acid, concentrated sulfuric acid, and aqua regia.

A preliminary test is provided by the phosphorus salt bead, in which vanadium appears characteristically green in the reduction flame. The oxidation flame is faintly yellow and therefore too unspecific.

Qualitative detection of vanadium is based on the formation of peroxovanadium ions. For this purpose, an acidic solution containing vanadium in the oxidation state +5 is mixed with a small amount of hydrogen peroxide. This forms the reddish-brown [V(O₂)]³⁺ cation. This reacts with larger amounts of hydrogen peroxide to form the faint yellow peroxovanadium acid H₃[VO₂(O₂)₂].