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

• 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).
• According to data provided by GSI, India consumed 4% of about 84,000 metric tonnes of vanadium produced across the globe in 2017.
• China, which produces 57% of the world’s vanadium, consumed 44% of the metal.
• A promising concentrations of vanadium in the palaeo-proterozoic carbonaceous phyllite rocks in the Depo and Tamang areas of Arunachal Pradesh’s Papum Pare district has found.
• Vanadium mineralization 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 fixed carbon content of up to 16%.
• The largest deposits are in China, followed by Russia and South Africa.

About Vanadium:

• Vanadium in its pure form is a soft, grey and ductile element primarily derived from mined iron ore, carbonaceous shale or phyllites and steel slag.
• Vanadium alloys are durable in extreme temperature and environments, and are corrosion-resistant.
• Its addition improves the tensile strength of steel and of reinforcing bars used for buildings, tunnels and bridges.
• Apart from increasing fuel-efficiency in automotive and aviation industries due to its high strength-to-weight ratio, the metal forms the integral part of vanadium redox batteries that have the least ecological impact in energy storage.

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/arunachal-now-on-indias-vanadium-map/article33544369.ece#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20Indian%20Bureau,%2C%20and%20are%20corrosion%2Dresistant.

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