Refining of Vanadium Using Cold Crucible

Abstract

Vanadium is expected to be used as an element in hydrogen storage alloys. One of the main obstacles to this metal being used more commonly in this way is its cost. Pure V refined by electron beam furnace costs more than 60,000 yen/kg in Japan.
This paper aims for the realization of a cost efficient process for producing pure V, by refining Al-95V alloy which is almost as cheap as a tenth of pure V. The cold crucible was chosen as a refining furnace because it does not use ceramic crucibles, which would react with the molten vanadium and impurify it.
The combination of two successive processes was invented. In the first process, Al₂O₃ was removed by slag-metal reaction. In the second process, Misch metal was used for deoxidization. Ti₇Cr_12.5V_78.5Mn₂ which was produced by this new method showed good performance as a hydrogen storage alloy.