The article provides an analysis of the comprehensive work carried out in Russia by various organizations, starting from the 1930s to the present, on the creation and development of vanadium production in the country. The first work on the production of vanadium products was started at Kerch Iron and Steel Works using vanadium-poor phosphorous iron ores. In 1932, a pilot shop was built, and in 1937 about 16 tons of vanadium were obtained in it. At the same time, work was carried out on blast furnace smelting of titanium magnetites to obtain vanadium cast iron. Already in 1936 a ferrovandium shop began operating at Chusovsky Metallurgical Plant (ChusMZ). This allowed the country to completely free itself from its import. In 1942 construction of a large blast furnace was started at ChusMZ. By the beginning of 1945, the smelting of vanadium pig iron had increased threefold compared to 1940. Since 1963, the plant began to receive low-titanium titanium magnetite concentrate from Gusevogorsk deposit. In 1977 ChusMZ replaced the sylvinite technology with the soda technology for extracting vanadium from converter slags. In the 1960s and 1970s, Nizhny Tagil Metallurgical Plant (NTMK) mastered the smelting of vanadium pig iron from Gusevogorsk deposit concentrate. In 1974 Novotulsk Metallurgical Plant implemented the lime technology for extracting vanadium from converter slags. As a result, the USSR became a major producer of vanadium. In 1997-2001 in IMET RAS, large-scale research was conducted jointly with the Vanadium-Tula enterprise to improve lime technology. As a result, the technical and economic indicators of production were significantly improved. At present, in order to increase vanadium production, Evraz Company is building a new plant in the Tula Region, which will operate using the lime-sulfuric acid technology. At present, IMET RAS continues research on the extraction of vanadium from various types of raw materials. Russia have huge reserves of high-titanium titanium magnetites, then the most important area is the comprehensive use of it as a mass iron-titanium-vanadium raw material with the production of high-quality steel, vanadium pentoxide and artificial rutile.
Sadykhov et al. (Wed,) studied this question.