Vanadium

Vanadium was a metal was found in gyroscopic equipment and focusing arrays that had been exposed to intense heat. The metal, found on the planet Jakku, was consumed by steelpeckers and collected in their gizzards to aid with digestion. When combined in their gizzards with the materials corundum and osmiridium, vanadium formed a chemical that helped break down a steelpecker's metal food.

During the New Republic Era, the Jakkuvian scavenger Rey wrote about the steelpecker birds' affinity for the metal in her survival guide and warned future scavengers of Jakku's Starship Graveyard to avoid parts that contained high concentrations of it so they would not encounter them.

Text and facts from the “Vanadium” article on Wookieepedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. Modified for this site.