Vanadium, atomic number 23, was discovered in 1801 by Andres Manuel del Rio, a Spanish scientist. Del Rio named this element as eritrono or erythronium from the Greek word eruthros, which means red. But in 1805, the French chemist Hippolyte-Victor Collet-Descotils, who examined the ore, announced that erythronium was just impure chromium. This analysis was accepted by del Rio as well.
No further study was done on the element until 1830, when Nils Gabriel Sefstrom, a Swedish scientist, found a new metal in an iron ore in Stockholm. He called this new element vanadium after Vanadis, the Scandinavian Goddess of beauty, as the compounds formed by this metal were extremely beautiful.
Later a German chemist named Friedrich Wohler reinvestigated the Mexican lead ore to find that vanadium was similar to del Rio’s erythronium.
Picture Credit : Google
