Listing
descption:
Nickel (pronounced /ˈnɪkəl/) 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 ferromagnetic
elements that exist around room temperature, the other three being iron, cobalt and gadolinium.
Detailed description
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.
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Properties
Physical
Nickel
is a silvery-white metal
with a slight golden tinge that takes a high polish. It is one of only four
elements that are magnetic at or near room temperature. Its Curie
temperature is 355 °C. That is, nickel is non-magnetic above this
temperature.[4]
The unit cell of nickel is a face centered cube with the lattice parameter
of 0.352 nm giving an atomic radius of 0.124 nm. Nickel belongs to the
transition metals and is hard and ductile.
Isotopes
Main article: Isotopes of nickel
Naturally
occurring nickel is composed of 5 stable isotopes; 58Ni,
60Ni, 61Ni, 62Ni and 64Ni with 58Ni
being the most abundant (68.077% natural
abundance). 62Ni is one of the most stable nuclides of all
the existing elements, second in stability only to 56Fe.
18 radioisotopes
have been characterised with the most stable being 59Ni with a half-life of
76,000 years, 63Ni with a half-life of 100.1 years, and 56Ni
with a half-life of 6.077 days. Nickel-56 is produced by the silicon burning process and later set free
in large quantities during type Ia supernovae.
Indeed, the shape of the light curve of these supernovae at intermediate to
late-times corresponds to the decay via electron
capture of nickel-56 to cobalt-56 and ultimately to iron-56.
History
Because
the ores of nickel are easily mistaken for ores of silver, understanding of
this metal and its use dates to relatively recent times. However, the
unintentional use of nickel is ancient, and can be traced back as far as 3500
BC. Bronzes from
what is now Syria had contained up to 2% nickel.[14]
Further, there are Chinese manuscripts suggesting that "white copper"
(cupronickel,
known as baitung) was used there between 1700 and 1400 BC. This Paktong
white copper was exported to Britain as early as the 17th century, but the
nickel content of this alloy was not discovered until 1822.[15]
In
medieval Germany, a red mineral was found in the Erzgebirge
(Ore Mountains) which resembled copper ore. However, when miners were unable to
extract any copper from it they blamed a mischievous sprite of German
mythology, Nickel (similar to Old Nick) for besetting the
copper. They called this ore Kupfernickel from the German Kupfer
for copper.[16][17][18][19]
This ore is now known to be nickeline or niccolite, a
nickel arsenide.
In 1751, Baron Axel Fredrik Cronstedt was attempting to
extract copper from kupfernickel and obtained instead a white metal that he
named after the spirit which had given its name to the mineral, nickel.[20]
In modern German, Kupfernickel or Kupfer-Nickel designates the alloy cupronickel.
In
the United States, the term "nickel" or "nick" was
originally applied to the copper-nickel Indian cent coin introduced in 1859.
Later, the name designated the three-cent coin introduced in 1865, and the
following year the five-cent shield nickel appropriated
the designation, which has remained ever since. Coins of pure nickel were first
used in 1881 in Switzerland.[17][21]
After
its discovery the only source for nickel was the rare Kupfernickel, but from
1824 on the nickel was obtained as byproduct of cobalt blue
production. The first large scale producer of nickel was Norway, which
exploited nickel rich pyrrhotite from 1848 on. The introduction of nickel in
steel production in 1889 increased the demand for nickel and the nickel deposits
of New
Caledonia, which were discovered in 1865, provided most of the world's
supply between 1875 and 1915. The discovery of the large deposits in the
Sudbury Basin, Canada
in 1883, in Norilsk-Talnakh,
Russia in 1920 and in the Merensky Reef, South
Africa in 1924 made large-scale production of nickel possible.[15]
Occurrence
The
bulk of the nickel mined comes from two types of ore deposits. The first
are laterites
where the principal ore minerals are nickeliferous limonite: (Fe,
Ni)O(OH) and garnierite (a hydrous nickel silicate): (Ni, Mg)3Si2O5(OH)4.
The second are magmatic sulfide deposits where the principal ore mineral is pentlandite:
(Ni, Fe)9S8.
In
terms of supply, the Sudbury region of Ontario, Canada,
produces about 30% of the world's supply of nickel. The Sudbury Basin deposit
is theorized to have been created by a meteorite impact
event early in the geologic history
of Earth. Russia contains about 40% of the world's known resources at the
Norilsk deposit in Siberia. The Russian mining company MMC Norilsk Nickel obtains the nickel and the
associated palladium
for world distribution. Other major deposits of nickel are found in New
Caledonia, France, Australia, Cuba, and Indonesia. Deposits found in tropical areas typically
consist of laterites which are produced by the intense weathering of ultramafic igneous
rocks and the resulting secondary concentration of nickel bearing oxide and
silicate minerals. Recently, a nickel deposit in
western Turkey
had been exploited, with this location being especially convenient for European
smelters, steelmakers and factories. The one locality in the United States
where nickel was commercially mined is Riddle,
Oregon, where several square miles of nickel-bearing garnierite surface
deposits are located. The mine closed in 1987.[22][23]
In 2005, Russia was the largest producer of nickel with about one-fifth world
share closely followed by Canada, Australia and Indonesia, as
reported by the British Geological Survey.
Based
on geophysical
evidence, most of the nickel on Earth is postulated to be concentrated in the Earth's
core. Kamacite
and taenite
are naturally occurring alloys of iron and nickel. For kamacite the alloy is usually in
the proportion of 90:10 to 95:5 although impurities such as cobalt or carbon may be
present, while for taenite the nickel content is between 20% and 65%. Kamacite
and taenite occur in nickel-iron meteorites.[24]
Metal value
The
market price of nickel surged throughout 2006 and the early months of 2007; as
of April 5, 2007, the metal was trading at 52,300 USD/tonne or 1.47 USD/oz.[26]
The price subsequently fell dramatically from these peaks, and as of 19 January
2009 the metal was trading at 10,880 USD/tonne.[26]
The
US nickel coin contains 0.04 oz (1.25
g) of nickel, which at the April 2007 price was worth 6.5 cents, along with
3.75 grams of copper worth about 3 cents, making the metal value over 9 cents.
Since the face value of a nickel is 5 cents, this made it an attractive target
for melting by people wanting to sell the metals at a profit. However, the United States Mint, in anticipation of this
practice, implemented new interim rules on December 14, 2006, subject to public
comment for 30 days, which criminalize the melting and export of cents and
nickels.[27]
Violators can be punished with a fine of up to $10,000 and/or imprisoned for a
maximum of five years.
PRICE
$10.7/KG OR $4.86/IB
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