What is Nickel?
Nickel is a very abundant natural element. Pure nickel is a hard, silvery-white metal. Nickel can be combined with other metals, such as iron, copper, chromium, and zinc, to form alloys. These alloys are used to make coins, jewelry, and items such as valves and heat exchangers. Most nickel is used to make stainless steel. Nickel can combine with other elements such as chlorine, sulfur, and oxygen to form nickel compounds. Many nickel compounds dissolve fairly easy in water and have a green color. Nickel compounds are used for nickel plating, to color ceramics, to make some batteries, and as substances known as catalysts that increase the rate of chemical reactions. Nickel is found in all soil and is emitted from volcanoes. Nickel is also found in meteorites and on the ocean floor. Nickel and its compounds have no characteristic odor or taste.
Nickel is a metallic chemical element, classified among the transition metals on the periodic table of elements. Humans have been using nickel in alloys for thousands of years, as traces of the metal in ancient statues and weapons indicate, although they may not have been aware of the precise properties of the element. There are a number of commercial applications for nickel, making it a very valuable and useful metal; several corporations specialize in mining and processing nickel ore, along with other metallic elements. Pure nickel is silvery gray in appearance, and it can be polished to a bright shine. The metal is also ferromagnetic, and very ductile, meaning that it can easily be melted and worked. Nickel is relatively hard and strong, making it a great addition to alloys with softer or more fragile metals. On the periodic table of elements, it is identified with the symbol Ni, and it has an atomic number of 28. The word “nickel” comes from the German kupfernickel, which literally
Nickel is a silvery-white metal that takes on a high polish. It belongs to the transition metals, and is hard and ductile. It occurs most usually in combination with sulfur and iron in pentlandite, with sulfur in millerite, with arsenic in the mineral nickeline, and with arsenic and sulfur in nickel glance. Similar to the massive forms of chromium, aluminium and titanium, nickel is a very reactive element, but is slow to react in air at normal temperatures and pressures. Due to its permanence in air and its inertness to oxidation, it is used in coins, for plating iron, brass, etc., for chemical apparatus, and in certain alloys, such as German silver. Nickel is magnetic, and is very often accompanied by cobalt, both being found in meteoric iron. It is chiefly valuable for the alloys it forms, especially many superalloys, and particularly stainless steel. Nickel is also a naturally magnetostrictive material, meaning that in the presence of a magnetic field, the material undergoes a small
