Nickel and Society

Nickel is a chemical element with the symbol Ni and atomic number 28 (28 protons and 28 electrons) and atomic mass 58.7. At room temperature, nickel is a solid. It is a transition element, located in group 10 (8 B) of the Periodic Classification of the Elements. The use of nickel goes back approximately to the 4th Century B.C., generally together with copper. Currently, some 65% of the nickel consumed is used to manufacture austenitic stainless steel, and the other 23% is used to produce other metallic alloys, rechargeable batteries, catalysis reactions, coinmaking, metallic coverings and forging. Nickel is a stone like any other metal, since it can be obtained from stones that contain it.

The use of nickel goes back approximately to the 4th century B.C., generally with copper, which already appears frequently in minerals of this metal. Original bronzes pieces from current day Syria have nickel contents in excess of 2%. Chinese manuscripts suggest that «white copper» was used in the East since 1400-1700 B.C., however, the ease with which nickel mines were confused with silver mines indicates that, in reality, nickel use came later, beginning in the 4th century A.D.

Minerals that contain nickel, like nickeline, have been used to color glass. In 1751 Axel Frederik Cronstedt, while trying to extract the copper from nickeline, obtained a white metal that he called nickel. The miners of Hartz attribute to «old Nick» (the devil) the reason why some copper minerals could not be worked. The metal responsible for this was discovered by Cronstedt in nickeline, kupfernickel, the copper devil, as the mineral was and still is called.

The first coin made from pure nickel was minted in 1881.