This article has been reviewed and approved by the following Topic Editor: Sidney Draggan (other articles)
Background
Nickel, with a symbol of Ni, is a silvery shiny, metallic element with an atomic number of 28. It can be hammered into thin sheets, which means it is malleable. Nickel, iron and cobalt are the only three elements known to be ferro-magnetic. Of the three, nickel is the least magnetic. When all three ferro-magnetic metals are alloyed together, an unusually strong magnet is created. This alloy conducts heat and electricity fairly well, but is not as good a conductor as pure silver or copper.
In 1751, Axel Fredrik Cronstedt of Sweden attempted to extract copper from the mineral niccolite and to his surprise got a silvery-white metal, instead of the copper. He named the new metal nickel after the mineral name of niccolite. This was the first discovery of nickel in the western world, but an alloy of copper, nickel and zinc - paitung or paktong - was used in China as far back as 235 B.C.E. for utensils and other metal ware.
The presence of elemental nickel in iron-nickel meteorites distinguishes them from rocks or minerals produced in the Earth. The amount of nickel in these meteorites ranges from 5% to almost 20%. When they are sliced and etched with acid, a pattern of intergrown crystals is revealed. This is called a widmanstatten pattern. This texture of the iron-nickel meteorites suggests they cooled and crystallized very, very slowly deep inside asteroids.
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