Context: Arunachal Pradesh, considered a sleeping hydropower giant, is likely to become India’s prime producer of vanadium, a high-value metal used in strengthening steel and titanium.

Key Findings

• Exploration being carried out by the 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 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 a 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.
• “Good prospects” of vanadium for a cumulative length of 15.5 km and an average thickness of 7 m were found in the Deed, Saiya and Phop areas of Lower Subansiri district. 
• Vanadium content was also found in the Pakro area of Pakke-Kesang district, Palin-Sangram in Kra Daadi, Kalamati in West Siang, Kalaktang in West Kameng and Kaying in Siang district.
• “The expected grade of vanadium mineralisation in Arunachal Pradesh is comparable to the important vanadium deposits of the world. The largest deposits are in China, followed by Russia and South Africa,

About Vanadium

• According to data provided by the GSI, India consumed 4% of about 84,000 tonnes of vanadium produced across the globe in 2017. 
• China, which produces 57% of the world’s vanadium, consumed 44% of the metal. 

Key Properties
Pure vanadium is: Bright white in appearance; Soft; Ductile; Has good structural strength; Possesses good corrosion resistance to alkalis, sulphuric acid, hydrochloric acid and salt water;

• It oxidises readily at temperatures greater then 660°C;
• Has a low fission neutron cross section

Applications

• The most important use of vanadium is as an additive for steel, with approximately 80% of vanadium going into ferrovanadium, a steel additive. 
• It is used for the production of rust resistant, spring and high speed tool steels. It is also added to steels to stabilise carbides.
• Vanadium foil is also used to bond titanium to steel.
• Due to its low fission neutron cross section vanadium is also used in nuclear applications.

Vanadium compounds are also used in a number of applications such as:

• Vanadium pentoxide as a catalyst in the ceramics industry
• As a mordent in the printing and dyeing of fabrics
• In the manufacture of aniline black

As per GSI specialist

• “We found promising concentrations of vanadium in the palaeo-proterozoic carbonaceous phyllite rocks in the Depo and Tamang areas of Papum Pare district in Arunachal Pradesh. 
• This was the first report of a primary deposit of vanadium in India, with an average grade of 0.76% V2O5 [vanadium pentoxide],”.

Need

• 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).

Where it’s found and how it’s mined

• About 85 percent of the world’s vanadium comes from three source countries: South Africa, China and Russia. 
• Vanadium is typically found within magnetite iron ore deposits, and is usually mined as a byproduct and not as a primary mineral. 
• Vanadium is often agglomerated with titanium, which must be separated out as an impurity during processing. The higher the titanium content in the ore, the harder it is to remove the vanadium. 
• The end product is vanadium pentoxide, which can be used for the applications cited above or to make ferrovanadium for use in steel.
• Some of the world’s key vanadium mines include the Bushveld complex in South Africa – responsible for about a quarter of all vanadium supply; the high-grade Maracas mine in Brazil owned by Largo Resources; and EVRAZ’s Vanady Tula mine in Russia, the largest European producer of vanadium pentoxide and ferrovanadium alloys.