Portrait of Axel Fredrik Cronstedt

Adapted from ⁠an image by Holger.Ellgaard (CC BY-SA 3.0), via Wikimedia Commons. This version is shared under the same licence.

1722–1765

Axel Fredrik Cronstedt

Discovered nickel in 1751.

Element

28NiNickel
1751

In 1751 Axel Fredrik Cronstedt, in Stockholm, tried to get copper from a reddish ore and got a new white metal instead. He named it nickel, after kupfernickel, the miners' name for the ore: the devil's copper.

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