In order to understand the capability of vanadium panels and membranes for fuel particle pumping at relatively low temperatures, absorption of neutral hydrogen atoms by vanadium sheet was examined at/below 350 °C under wide variety of experimental conditions. A niobium sheet kept at high temperature (420 °C) was used as a reference specimen. Sufficiently high absorption rates were obtained even at around room temperature in the range of incident fluxes from 1017 to 1021 m-2s-1. No noticeable reduction in absorption rates was observed up to the H retention level of 0.1 at%. The influence of CO and water vapor was negligibly small up to an exposure of 1023 m-2. Significant reduction in the absorption rate was observed only when an oxide film was formed on the surface by exposure to O2 to 1020 m-2 and to H2O over 1023 m-2 at room temperature.