Spanish-Mexican mineralogist · 1764–1849
Andrés Manuel del Río
Andrés Manuel del Río discovered vanadium in Mexico in 1801, 30 years before it was rediscovered in Sweden. He gave up his claim after being told, wrongly, that it was chromium.
How Vanadium was found
Del Río analysed a brown lead ore from Zimapán, now known as vanadinite. He found a new metal whose salts showed many colours and called it panchromium, then erythronium, because its salts turned red when heated.
He gave samples to Alexander von Humboldt, who sent them to Paris. The French chemist Hippolyte-Victor Collet-Descotils concluded the metal was impure chromium, and del Río withdrew his claim. In 1830 Nils Sefström found the same element in Swedish iron, and Friedrich Wöhler then showed it was del Río’s erythronium.
Shared the credit
The discovery is credited jointly to these scientists.
Life and career
Born 1764 · Died 1849
Del Río was born in Madrid and trained in mining in Spain, France, Germany and England. In 1794 he went to Mexico City to teach at the new Royal Mining Seminary and wrote the first mineralogy textbook in the Americas.
He supported Mexican independence, served as a deputy in the Spanish Cortes, and spent some years in exile in the United States before returning to Mexico.
Discovered in the same era
Other elements identified within ten years of 1801.