Nickel
Nickel is a silver-white, malleable, and ductile metal element. It is represented by the atomic symbol Ni. Its atomic weight is 58.71 and its atomic number is 28. It is a moderately ferromagnetic material that can conduct heat and electricity. Nickel is often found as a component of meteorites.
A very large deposit of nickel is located at Sudbury, Ontario, where most of the world's nickel is mined. Nickel is often found in ores that also contain copper, platinum, gold, and zinc. Commercially, it is produced from the ores pentlandite and pyrrhotite. When nickel is found in mineral deposits, it resembles copper.
For centuries miners did not know how to refine and use the metal. English miners, for example, referred to it as "Old Nick's copper" implying that "Old Nick"--or the devil--had played a trick on them by substituting an ore that produced nothing but slag when it is smelted, for the copper they wanted. Germans called it Kupfernickel, or "imp copper," for the same reason. Although nickel was never refined to its pure state, for centuries it was combined with silver in alloys used to make coins.
A Chinese alloy of these two metals and copper, developed in the second century b.c., was used through the Middle Ages to make implements, even swords, which resembled silver but were more durable. Nickel silver is still used today. Meteoric iron, which often contains nickel, was worked by ancient Egyptian metalsmiths. The nickel-iron metal resists rusting; one dagger found in an Egyptian tomb of the Amarna period still retained much of its original shine.
The first scientist to identify nickel as a separate metal was the Swedish mineralogist Axel Fredrik Cronstedt (1722-1765), who isolated crystals of the metal and named it nickel (shortened from the German Kupfernickel). Cronstedt discovered nickel by using a blowpipe he invented to direct air and increase the heat used in the smelting of metals. He also developed a chemical basis for the classification of different minerals based upon the traits they exhibited when under high heat. In 1751, experimenting with some " Kupfernickel" ore, Cronstedt isolated some crystals of nickel, and his system of classification allowed him to realize it was a previously unclassified metal. However, it took twenty years for Cronstedt's colleagues to accept his identification of nickel as an element.
Nickel is useful because of its anti-corrosive nature. Rarely used in its pure form, nickel is alloyed with steel and other metals to make a protective layer for other metals. Nickel is also alloyed with copper to make piping for desalination plants. Nickel sulfate is used in plating. Nickel is an important material in the production of high temperature superconducting materials. It is also used for producing storage batteries, magnets, spark plugs, and machinery parts.
The most important modern use for nickel is in the making of stainless steel. Nickel and chromium are alloyed with iron. The nickel strengthens the stainless steel while the chromium makes it resistant to corrosion. Most stainless steel has a ratio of about 74%iron, 18%chromium and 8% nickel. It is used in cutlery, cookware, shaving equipment, piping and other applications in which metal that resist heat and moisture is desirable. The American five-cent piece, the "nickel," is made from an alloy of nickel and copper.
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