 Discovery Information
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| Who: Axel Cronstedt |
| When: 1751 |
| Where: Sweden |
|
| Name Origin
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| German: kupfernickel (false copper); nickel (satan). |
| "Nickel" in different languages. |
|
| Sources
|
| Chiefly found in limonite (Fe,Ni)O(OH), garnierite (Ni,Mg)3Si2O5(OH) and pentlandite [(Ni,Fe)9S8] ore. It is also found in magmatic sulfide deposits where the principal ore mineral is pentlandite, (Ni, Fe)9S8.
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| Primary producers are Russia, South Africa, Australia, New Caledonia, Cuba, Indonesia, the USA and Canada. Over 1.3 millions tons are produced annually.
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|
| Abundance
|
| Universe: 60 ppm (by weight) |
| Sun: 80 ppm (by weight) |
| Carbonaceous meteorite: 13000 ppm |
| Earth's Crust: 90 ppm |
| Seawater: |
| Atlantic surface: 1 x 10-4 ppm
|
| Atlantic deep: 4 x 10-4 ppm
|
| Pacific surface: 1 x 10-4 ppm
|
| Pacific deep: 5.7 x 10-4 ppm
|
| Human: |
| 100 ppb by weight |
| 11 ppb by atoms |
|
| Uses
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| Used mainly in metal alloys because of its resistance to corrosion. Also in nickel-cadmium batteries, as a catalyst, a green tint in glass, electroplating and for coins.
|
| Nickel consumption can be summarized as: nickel steels (60%), nickel-copper alloys and nickel silver (14%), malleable nickel, nickel clad and Inconel (9%), plating (6%), nickel cast irons (3%), heat and electric resistance
alloys (3%), nickel brasses and bronzes (2%), others (3%).
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|
| History
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| The use of Nickel is ancient, and can be traced back as far as 3500 BC. Bronzes from what is now Syria had a nickel content
of up to 2%. Further, there are Chinese manuscripts suggesting that "white copper" (i.e. baitung) was used in the Orient between
1700 and 1400 BC. However, because the ores of nickel were easily mistaken for ores of silver, any understanding of this metal and its use dates to more contemporary times.
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| Minerals containing nickel (e.g. kupfernickel, meaning copper of the devil ("Nick"), or false copper) were of value for colouring
glass green. In 1751, Baron Axel Fredrik Cronstedt was attempting to extract copper from kupfernickel (now called niccolite (NiAs)), and obtained instead a white metal that he called nickel.
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| In the United States, the term "nickel" or "nick" was originally applied to the copper-nickel Indian cent coin introduced in 1859. Later, the
name designated the three-cent coin introduced in 1865, and the following year the five-cent shield nickel appropriated the
designation, which has remained ever since. Coins of pure nickel were first used in 1881 in Switzerland.
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|
| Notes
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| Nickel is magnetic (although the US 'nickel' coin is not as it is mostly copper).
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| The largest producer of nickel is Russia which extracts 267,000 tonnes of nickel per year. Australia and Canada are the second and third largest producers, making 207 and 189.3 thousand tonnes per year.
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| Nickel use is ancient, and can be traced back as far as 3500 BC. |
|
| Hazards
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| Exposure to nickel metal and soluble compounds should not exceed 0.05 mg/cm3 in nickel equivalents per 40-hour work week. Nickel sulfide (NiS) fume and dust is believed to be carcinogenic, and various other nickel compounds may be as well.
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| Powder is pyrophoric - it can ignite spontaneously. |
