In the aluminothermic reduction of m e t a l oxide, calcium oxide is often used as a flux. The calcium oxide instead of forming an extraneous addition can sometimes be present in chemical combination with the m e t a l oxide. A familiar example is the aluminothermic reduction of calcium tungstate for the production of ferrotungsten. It has been stated1 that good coalescence of ferrotungsten is probably due to calcium oxide being an integral part of the tungsten resource, thus being made available essentially on a molecular basis for combining with alumina reaction product and quickly forming a fluid s lag . This can be considered to be a favorable state of affairs in the aluminothermic reduction of metal oxide as tied up with calcium oxide. In this context, reference can also be drawn t o the aluminothermic reduction of calcium molybdate for the production of ferromolybdehum and of molybdenum reported previously from this laboratory.~'3 This communication is an account of the efforts made for the preparation of vanadium and of ferrovanadium from calcium vanadates. The literature has made reference to the precipitation of calcium vanadate from vanadium bearing aqueous solution.4-7 T h e r e is however no information available on any technical use that has been developed for calcium vanadate. Aluminothermic reduction of vanadium pentoxide for the production of ferrovanadium or of vanadium in the industrial practice is known to be c a r r i e d out in presence of lime serving as a flux. This points towards the possibility for calcium vanadate as an alternative starting material for the aluminothermic reduction. For use in the present investigation the calcium vanadates were prepared in the laboratory. The compounds corresponding t o 2 CaO.V205 and to 4 CaO.V2Os were precipitated from alkaline sodium vanadate colution by treatments with CaC12 and lime respectively essentially in accordance with published work.7 The precipitated vanadium salts were dried, calcined at 1123 K and ground predominantly to -100 m e s h . The 2 CaO.V~Os and the 4 CaO.V2Os compounds, as made ready for use, analyzed 59.18 pct VaO5 and 44 pct V2Os respectively. Aluminum powder (grade ' C ' , 1 2 0 mesh) as received from M/s Indian Aluminium Co. was used as the reductant. The proc e d u r e for carrying out the aluminothermic r e d u c tions in refractory lined open vessels was essentially