Nickel

Nickel

Nickel is one of the 92 natural elements in the world: it is classified as a transition metal.

Symbol: Ni

Atomic Number/Number of Protons: 28

Atomic Mass: 58.6934 amu

Most Common Ion Form: Ni 2+

Electronegativity No.: 1.91

Melting Point: 1453.0 oC (1726.15 oK, 2647.4 oF)

Boiling Point: 2732.0 oC (3005.15 oK, 4949.6 oF)

Density (at 293oK): 8.902 g/cm3

Nickel is a shiny white/silvery metal; it is one of three transition metals (Iron, Cobalt, and Nickel) that can generate a magnetic field. It has many isotopes; five of them are stable isotopes. They are Ni-58, Ni-60, Ni-61, Ni-62 and Ni-64.

Nickel was known to the ancients, but was first purified by a Swedish scientist, Baron Axel Fredrik Cronstedt, in 1751. It was named after kupfernickel, meaning "devil's copper" or "false copper," because although it is essential to the human body, it can be poisonous; overtime exposure to nickel sulfide can cause cancer. Nickel is a good conductor of heat and electricity, and forms mostly greenish/bluish compounds.

Nowadays, commercial nickel is extracted mostly from pentlandite (Fe, Ni)9S8, a metallic yellow-brown mineral. It is also obtained from pyrrohite (Fex-1S). Nickel is valuable for its outstanding resistance to oxidation and corrosion. 65% of nickel is used to make stainless steel; another 12% goes to immensely powerful alloys--superalloys--which are used in high-performance machines, like turbine blades and such. The rest of commercial nickel is used to make nickel-cadmium batteries, magnets, green-tinted glass and various coins--especially Canadian coins (30% of the entire world's nickel comes from Ontario, Canada). The U.S. 5Ñž nickel is 25% nickel. Nickel, which is found in meteorites, helps determine if a rock is truly from outer space.

A huge percentage of the nickel on Earth is in its 32% iron-nickel core. Mercury is suspected to have an 80% iron-nickel core.

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