Nickel

Element Name: Nickel
Atomic Number: 28
Atomic Mass: 58.6934

Atomic Symbol: Ni
Melting Point: 1455° C
Boiling Point: 2913° C

Nickel is a hard, ductile, malleable silvery-white metal. Unlike many metals, nickel is very resistant to corrosion and will not tarnish in air. It is also a fair conductor of heat and electricity. Nickel is a ferromagnet at room temperatures. Pure nickel is an irritant to people who are sensitive to it (around 10-20% of the population), and can cause dermatitis. With repeated exposure, especially by inhalation, it can cause disease and cancer. It has five stable isotopes that occur in nature along with 18 radioisotopes. It can very in oxidation state from -2 to +4, but its most common configuration is +2. The name nickel comes from the German “kupfernickel” which would translate to “Goblin’s Copper”. It was named like this since German miners originally thought a ruddy red mineral containing nickel arsenide really contained copper which goblins would not let them extract.

Interesting Facts:

Nickel’s alloys have several interesting magnetic properties. Mu-metal, an alloy of nickel, iron, and molybdenum, can disrupt the attraction of a magnet because not much of an applied magnetic field will pass through it. Nitinol, a 1:1 blend of nickel and titanium, has magnetic memory. If heated and bent into a shape it will be able to return to this shape by being heated again. The old horseshoe-style magnets you sometimes see in cartoons were mostly made out of alnico, an amalgam of nickel, aluminum, iron, and cobalt. Nickel is naturally magnetostrictive, meaning that it will shrink in length when placed in a magnetic field. In 2006, when the price of nickel had spiked, a U.S. 5c piece (also called a nickel) was worth more as a metal than a currency.

Sources:

Nickel can rarely be found in its elemental state in nature, inside meteorites and ultramafic rock. More commonly, nickel is found in many minerals. Pentlandite, millterite, nickeline, galena, pyrrhotite, and garnierite are minerals that contain nickel mixed with other things like iron, sulfur, magnesium, silicon, and arsenic. Meteorites also contain nickel usually in an alloy with iron. Nickel is found in around 84 parts per million in the earth’s crust, but is suspected to be 100 times more common beneath the crust. The molten outer core and solid inner core are thought be composed of mostly iron, but a significant amount of nickel.

Industrial Uses:

Nickel’s primary use in industry comes from its alloys, particular its alloys with steel. Nickel makes other metals to make them more resistant to corrosion and heat. Stainless steel is made of steel, nickel, and chromium. More expensive superalloys composed of iron and nickel are used in jet engines because of their strength despite extreme temperature. Another important use of nickel is plating. Native nickel is already very resistant to corrosion, so by plating less valuable (and more functional) materials with nickel one can have the best of both worlds. Car bumpers and coins are often plated with nickel for this reason. Nickel-hydride batteries were once commonly sold as rechargeable batteries, but lithium batteries are becoming more popular.

References:

“Facts About Nickel.” Livescience. Livescience.com, 3 May 2013. Web. 26 July
2016.
“Nickel.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 26 July 2016.
“Nickel Element Facts / Chemistry.” Chemicool. Chemicool.com, 8 Oct. 2012.
Web. 26 July 2016.
Gray, Theodore W., and Nick Mann. The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every
Known Atom in the Universe. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2009. Print.