ElementsWhat is vanadium?
Vanadium is a hard, silver-grey metal. Most of it is collected as a by-product from iron ores and from oil.
What is vanadium used for?
Making steel tougher for tools, springs and axles, catalysts for making sulfuric acid, and large storage batteries.
Where the name comes from
From Vanadis, a name of the Norse goddess Freyja, for the many colours of its compounds.
Key facts
- Symbol
- V
- Atomic number
- 23
- Atomic mass
- 50.9415 u
- Family
- Transition metal
- Period
- 4
- Group
- 5
- Block
- d
- State at room temperature
- Solid
- Melting point
- 1,910 °C (2,183 K, 3,470 °F)
- Boiling point
- 3,407 °C (3,680 K, 6,164 °F)
- Density
- 6 g/cm³
- Electrons per shell
- 2, 8, 11, 2
- Electron configuration
- [Ar]4s2 3d3
- Common oxidation states
- +5, +4, +3, +2
- Electronegativity (Pauling)
- 1.63
- First ionisation energy
- 6.746 eV
- Electron affinity
- 0.525 eV
- Atomic radius (van der Waals)
- 179 pm
- Discovered
- 1801
Place in the periodic table
Vanadium is element number 23. It sits in period 4 (row 4) of the periodic table, in group 5 (column 5), and belongs to the d-block. Just before it comes titanium (22), and just after it comes chromium (24). In the same column, niobium is below it. Elements in one column tend to behave alike.
Family: Transition metals.
Physical properties
At room temperature vanadium is a solid. It melts at 1,910 °C and boils at 3,407 °C, so it stays liquid over a range of 1,497 degrees. Its density is 6 grams per cubic centimetre, so a one-litre block would weigh about 6 kilograms. By density it ranks 58th among the 96 elements with a measured value.
Inside the atom
An atom of vanadium has 23 protons in its nucleus and, when neutral, 23 electrons around it. The electrons are arranged in 4 shells: 2, 8, 11, 2. The outermost shell holds 2 electrons. Written in full, the electron configuration is [Ar]4s2 3d3.
Its electronegativity on the Pauling scale is 1.63. This number shows how strongly an atom pulls shared electrons towards itself: fluorine, the strongest, is 3.98. Removing one electron from an atom takes 6.746 electronvolts (about 651 kilojoules per mole). One mole of vanadium weighs 50.9415 grams, so a single gram contains about 1.18 × 1022 atoms.
The ring picture is a simple model that only counts the electrons in each shell. Real atoms do not look like this.
Next steps
- Work out the weight of a compound that contains vanadium with the molar mass calculator.
- Compare it with every other element in the sortable list.
- Test yourself with the symbol quiz.
Figures on this page are from PubChem (U.S. National Library of Medicine), as downloaded on 11 November 2026. See About and data sources.