Northeastern State Arunachal Pradesh could be India’s prime producer of vanadium, a high-value metal used in strengthening steel and titanium. Exploration being carried out by Geological Survey of India (GSI) has placed the eastern Himalayan State on the vanadium map of the country and geologists are confident of identifying a deposit soon.
Vanadium in its pure form is a soft, grey and ductile element primarily derived from mined iron ore, carbonaceous shale or phyllites and steel slag.
It is a scarce element, hard, silvery grey, ductile and malleable transition metal with good structural strength.
Transition metals are all the elements in groups 3–12 of the periodic table. These are superior conductors of heat as well as electricity.
Properties of Vanadium:
Uses of Vanadium:
Vanadium mineralisation in Arunachal Pradesh is geologically similar to the “stone coal” vanadium deposits of China hosted in carbonaceous shale.
This high vanadium content is associated with graphite with fixed carbon content of up to 16%.
Geologists discovered two bands of about 7-metre thick carbonaceous phyllite for a length of more than 6 km in the Depo area. This prompted the GSI to extend its search to other areas of the State.
Phyllite is a fine-grained metamorphic rock formed by the recrystallization of fine-grained, parent sedimentary rocks, such as mudstones or shales.
India is a significant consumer of vanadium, but is not a primary producer of the strategic metal.
India is a significant consumer of vanadium but is not a primary producer of the strategic metal.
It is recovered as a by-product from the slag collected from the processing of vanadiferous magnetite ores (iron ore).
According to data provided by GSI, India consumed 4% of about 84,000 metric tonnes of vanadium produced across the globe in 2017. China, which produces 57% of the world’s vanadium, consumed 44% of the metal.
World resources of vanadium exceed 63 million tons.
Vanadium occurs in deposits of phosphate rock, titaniferous magnetite, and uraniferous sandstone and siltstone, in which it constitutes less than 2% of the host rock.
Significant quantities are also present in bauxite and carboniferous materials, such as coal, crude oil, oil shale, and tar sands.
Because vanadium is typically recovered as a byproduct or coproduct, demonstrated world resources of the element are not fully indicative of available supplies.
Although domestic resources and secondary recovery are adequate to supply a large portion of domestic needs, all of U.S. demand is currently met by foreign sources.