Ni | Nickel – Periodic Table Overview

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Nickel is a chemical element, with the chemical symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. It is one of the four elements that are ferromagnetic around room temperature, the other three being iron, cobalt and gadolinium.

The use of nickel has been traced as far back as 3500 BC, but it was first isolated and classified as a chemical element in 1751 by Axel Fredrik Cronstedt, who initially mistook its ore for a copper mineral. Its most important ore minerals are laterites, including limonite and garnierite, and pentlandite.

Major production sites include Sudbury region in Canada, New Caledonia and Norilsk in Russia. The metal is corrosion-resistant, finding many uses in alloys, as a plating, in the manufacture of coins, magnets and common household utensils, as a catalyst for hydrogenation, and in a variety of other applications. Enzymes of certain life-forms contain nickel as an active center, which makes the metal an essential nutrient for those life forms.

One thing interesting is that cobalt, nickel, and iron are not only ferromagnetic, but they are placed in a neat little row on top of the transition metals.

Nickel was used quite a lot for plating on cars etc before chromium plating became more popular, I for one think it looks better. I remember seeing them restoring some old Indians on American Chopper which needed nickel plating back to original spec.

Nickel metal catalysts are used in the hydrogenation of vegetable oil. Hydrogenation is a process that turns liquid vegetable oil into either a semi solid (margarine) or full solid (shortening). Part of the controversy over hydrogenated oils involves the use of these metal catalysts.