The lighter three Group 5 elements occur naturally and share similar properties; all three are hard refractory metals under standard conditions.

Del Río extracted the element from a sample of Mexican "brown lead" ore, later named vanadinite.

[3] In 1831 Swedish chemist Nils Gabriel Sefström rediscovered the element in a new oxide he found while working with iron ores.

[14] This conclusion was disputed in 1846 by German chemist Heinrich Rose, who argued that there were two different elements in the tantalite sample, and named them after children of Tantalus: niobium (from Niobe) and pelopium (from Pelops).

The first reported detection was by a team at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR), which in 1968 had produced the new element by bombarding an americium-243 target with a beam of neon-22 ions, and reported 9.4 MeV (with a half-life of 0.1–3 seconds) and 9.7 MeV (t1/2 > 0.05 s) alpha activities followed by alpha activities similar to those of either 256103 or 257103.

[20] This report included an initial chemical examination: the thermal gradient version of the gas-chromatography method was applied to demonstrate that the chloride of what had formed from the SF activity nearly matched that of niobium pentachloride, rather than hafnium tetrachloride.

[20] In June 1970, JINR made improvements on their first experiment, using a purer target and reducing the intensity of transfer reactions by installing a collimator before the catcher.

Lower oxidation states are also known, but in all elements other than vanadium,[27] they are less stable, decreasing in stability with atomic mass increase.

[42] Vanadium(V) forms various peroxo complexes, most notably in the active site of the vanadium-containing bromoperoxidase enzymes.

In alkaline solutions, species with 2, 3 and 4 peroxide groups are known; the last forms violet salts with the formula M3V(O2)4 nH2O (M= Li, Na, etc.

[44][45] Niobates are generated by dissolving the pentoxide in basic hydroxide solutions or by melting it in alkali metal oxides.

All the stable members of the group are silvery-blue refractory metals, though impurities of carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen make them brittle.

[70] Tantalum is dark (blue-gray),[71] dense, ductile, very hard, easily fabricated, and highly conductive of heat and electricity.

The metal is renowned for its resistance to corrosion by acids; in fact, at temperatures below 150 °C tantalum is almost completely immune to attack by the normally aggressive aqua regia.

The alpha phase is relatively ductile and soft; it has body-centered cubic structure (space group Im3m, lattice constant a = 0.33058 nm), Knoop hardness 200–400 HN and electrical resistivity 15–60 μΩ⋅cm.

[58] Atoms of dubnium in the solid state should arrange themselves in a body-centered cubic configuration, like the previous group 5 elements.

[78] Vanadium metal is obtained by a multistep process that begins with roasting crushed ore with NaCl or Na2CO3 at about 850 °C to give sodium metavanadate (NaVO3).

An aqueous extract of this solid is acidified to produce "red cake", a polyvanadate salt, which is reduced with calcium metal.

[79] Purification of vanadium is possible by the crystal bar process developed by Anton Eduard van Arkel and Jan Hendrik de Boer in 1925.

To produce niobium, the first step in the processing is the reaction of the oxides with hydrofluoric acid:[55] The first industrial scale separation, developed by Swiss chemist de Marignac, exploits the differing solubilities of the complex niobium and tantalum fluorides, dipotassium oxypentafluoroniobate monohydrate (K2[NbOF5]·H2O) and dipotassium heptafluorotantalate (K2[TaF7]) in water.

[19] To date, no experiments in a supercollider have been conducted to synthesize the next member of the group, either unpentseptium (Ups) or unpentennium (Upe).

Tantalum is added into objects exposed to high temperatures, in electronic devices, in surgical implants, and for handling corrosive substances.

[98] Rats and chickens are also known to require vanadium in very small amounts and deficiencies result in reduced growth and impaired reproduction.

[99] Vanadium is a relatively controversial dietary supplement, primarily for increasing insulin sensitivity[100] and body-building.

[101] In addition, decavanadate and oxovanadates are species that potentially have many biological activities and that have been successfully used as tools in the comprehension of several biochemical processes.

Other effects have been reported after oral or inhalation exposures on blood parameters,[108][109] liver,[110] neurological development,[111] and other organs[112] in rats.

During combustion, vanadium oxidizes and reacts with sodium and sulfur, yielding vanadate compounds with melting points as low as 530 °C, which attack the passivation layer on steel and render it susceptible to corrosion.

Short- and long-term exposure to niobates and niobium chloride, two water-soluble chemicals, have been tested in rats.

Rats treated with a single injection of niobium pentachloride or niobates show a median lethal dose (LD50) between 10 and 100 mg/kg.

[19] The metal is highly biocompatible[122] and is used for body implants and coatings, therefore attention may be focused on other elements or the physical nature of the chemical compound.