1803,1830,1867: Vanadium - The book of science

Vanadium
Atomic number 23
Stuff
Commentary

Mexico City, Stockholm, Manchester—Andrés Manuel del Río, Nils Gabriel Sefström, Jöns Jacob Berzelius, Henry Enfield Roscoe elements

Vanadium

Andrés Manuel del Río
extracted the salts of a new metal
from brown lead from Zimapán
and named it panchromium.
Alexander von Humboldt
took samples from del Río
to Hippolyte Victor Collet-Descotils
who wrongly said it was only chromium.
Nils Gabriel Sefström
took a ductile iron ore from Taberg
used since 1621 to make rifles
to Jöns Jacob Berzelius.
Together, Sefström and Berzelius
rediscovered the new metal, although
they isolated it only as a nitride,
and they named it vanadium.
Henry Enfield Roscoe
was the first to isolate the pure metal,
although large-scale production
would take another fifty years.

Atomic number 23

Vanadium steels
stronger and lighter
for chassis and gears
of Ford’s Model T
for surgical instruments,
tools, and knives
*
Vanadium pentoxide
catalyzes sulfuric acid.
Vanadium dioxide
blocks infrared light.

Stuff with color

Pigment, as from chromium or vanadium,
is subtractive.
Light, as from prisms or rainbows,
is additive.
Red and yellow, black and white,
people are like light.

Henry Enfield Roscoe was the uncle of Beatrix Potter. Aside from that, he was the first to isolate pure vanadium metal.

Pigments absorb all but the color they reflect; mix them together to absorb all colors. When you mix cyan, magenta, and yellow pigments, you get black. When you overlap red, blue, and green lights, you get white. Isaac Newton recombined colors from a prism back into white light with another prism to show that color was a property of light.