Vanadium: A U.S. Perspective on an Understudied Metal

Vanadium is an element that is little known except to those who manufacture high-performance iron alloys and other widely used metal products that are indispensable for creating improved product performance across a variety of final-use sectors. We report here on deriving a detailed material flow cycle for vanadium in the United States for 1992–2021, the most recent year for which detailed data are available. The steels [tool steel, alloy steels, and high-strength low-alloy (HSLA) steels] are responsible for about half of the cumulative vanadium demand (167 Gg), with significantly smaller fractions being used to create catalysts, titanium–vanadium alloys, and several smaller product groups. These products flow to five end-use sectors, transport (61 Gg) and industrial machinery (62 Gg) being the largest. At end of product life, the vanadium-containing tool steels and catalysts are largely recycled, while most of the vanadium in carbon steels, alloy steels, HSLA steels, and other vanadium use sectors is functionally lost.