There is a satisfying symmetry in this discovery. Its properties, including its magnetism, led him to conclude that he had isolated a new metallic element.Ĭronstedt named the new element nickel, after the kupfernickel from which he had isolated it. (We now know that kupfernickel is nickel arsenide, NiAs.)Īfter finding that its chemical reactions were not what he would have expected from a copper compound, he heated kupfernickel with charcoal to yield a hard, white metal, whose color alone showed it could not be copper. In frustration, they had named it ‘kupfernickel’ which could be translated as ‘goblin’s copper’ because clearly, from the miners’ point of view at any rate, there were goblins or little imps at work, preventing them extracting the copper.īetween 17, the Swedish chemist Axel Cronstedt carried out a number of experiments to determine the true nature of kupfernickel. They believed the dark red substance was an ore of copper, but they had been unable to extract any copper from it. In the 1600s, a dark red ore, often with a green coating, had been a source of irritation for copper miners in Saxony, Germany. It was not until the 1750s that nickel was discovered to be an element. Iron is the most abundant element in metallic meteorites, followed by nickel. Nickel is present in metallic meteorites and so has been in use since ancient times.Īrtifacts made from metallic meteorites have been found dating from as early as 5000 BC – for example beads in graves in Egypt.
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