Vanadium has been discovered twice. The first discovery was made in 1801 by a mineralogical professor named Jielie Riva in Mexico City. He discovered that it was in a sample of vanadate, which was Pb5 (VO4) 3Cl. Due to the bright red color of the salt solution of this new element when heated, it was named "Elitroni", meaning "red", and the item was sent to Paris. However, French chemists speculate that it is a contaminated chromium ore, so it has not been recognized by people.
The second discovery was in 1830 when Swedish chemist Sefstrom. N.G (1787-1845) dissolved iron in acid while studying iron ore in the Smaland mining area, and discovered vanadium in the residue. Because vanadium compounds are colorful and very beautiful, we named this new element "Vanadium" after a beautiful goddess named Vanadis in Norse mythology. The Chinese name is vanadium according to its transliteration. Sebastian, Weiler, Bezerius, and others have studied vanadium to confirm its existence, but they have never isolated the elemental vanadium. Later in 1830, he discovered it in iron extracted from Swedish iron ore and affirmed that it was a new element called vanadium. He was able to prove that it was a new element and thus defeated a competing chemist, Friedrich W ö hler from Simapan (Mexico), who was also studying another type of vanadium ore.
In 1840, Russian mineral engineer Su Bin wrote, "Copper containing pig iron, black copper, and copper ingots are vanadium containing alloys, and due to the presence of vanadium, they have higher hardness.".
In 1869, British chemist Roscoe H.E (1833-1915) reduced vanadium dioxide with hydrogen gas to produce pure vanadium metal for the first time, and he proved that the previous metal sample was actually vanadium nitride (VN).
In 1939, vanadium was also discovered in copper bearing sandstones in Permsk, Russia.