Occurrence
See also category: Vanadate mineralsMetallic vanadium is not found in nature, but is known to exist in about 65 different minerals. Economically significant examples include patronite (VS4), vanadinite (Pb5(VO4)3Cl), and carnotite (K2(UO2)2(VO4)2ยท3H2O). Much of the world's vanadium production is sourced from vanadium-bearing magnetite found in ultramafic gabbro bodies. Vanadium is mined mostly in South Africa, north-western China, and eastern Russia. In 2010 these three countries mined more than 98% of the 56,000 tonnes of produced vanadium.
Vanadium is also present in bauxite and in fossil fuel deposits such as crude oil, coal, oil shale and tar sands. In crude oil, concentrations up to 1200 ppm have been reported. When such oil products are burned, the traces of vanadium may initiate corrosion in motors and boilers. An estimated 110,000 tonnes of vanadium per year are released into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels. Vanadium has also been detected spectroscopically in light from the Sun and some other stars.
Read more about this topic: Vanadium Compounds
Famous quotes containing the word occurrence:
“One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted; and a community is infinitely more brutalised by the habitual employment of punishment than it is by the occasional occurrence of crime.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)