pneumatician - 24-8-2021 at 14:44
What do you think guys? can new metals be discovered? And if a new metal is discovered, in what contests can be presented to win a lot of money??? :-)
maybe the metal is new but no demand and in the end is only a curiosity...
in today opinion, what is this??
OF NICOLANUM.
Dr. J. B. Richter has announced the existence of a J
new metal, to which he has given the name of nicola. *v|
lum, because it always accompanies nickel in the ores
of that metal. This metal has not hitherto been ex-
amined, nor recognized by other chemists. Its exis- <i
tence, however, is rather doubtful. Dr. Richter ob-
serves, that he was surprised to find, that nickel, after ,
being purified from cobalt, iron, and arsenic, and after
that reduced without the addition of a combustible body,
never formed a mass, but was always found dispersed
in small particles in a hard heavy substance, which
had the appearance of the remains of vitrified copper. ' '
The following additional remarks, are taken chiefly
from the Annales de Chiniie, lxiv. and Nicholson's, j
Journal, No. 48, p. 261.
It resembles cobalt—
1. By its property of super-saturating itself with
oxygen, at the expense of the nitric acid, and thus
forming a body which resembles the black oxyd of
manganese with regard to its solubility in the acids:
2. By its property of not being reducible but by the ■>
intervention of a combustible body.
It differs from cobalt—
1. By the blackish-green colour of its solution, even
when they are entirely neutralized. It is known that
the neutral solutions of cobalt in the sulphuric, nitric, *
and muriatic acids, are of a crimson-red colour; and that
the muriate of cobalt alone becomes of a greenish-blue
on being deprived of its water : from whence it hap-
pens that an excess of acid produces this colour, be-
cause it combines with the water. With the muriate
rf nicolanum precisely the reverse takes place ; when
' w^*>r it is green (although of a less beau-
117
tiful colour than the cobalt without water) and when
deprived of its water it becomes reddish. 2. By the
colour of its carbonate : that of cobalt is of a beauti-
ful poppy blue, but the carbonate of nicolanum is a
bluish green inclining to a pale gray. 3 By the co-
lour of its oxyd precipitated without carbonic acid:
that of cobalt is of a deep blue, and changes on wash-
ing to a blackish brown ; but this oxyd of nicolanum
is of a greenish blue, and its colour does not change.
Nicolanum resembles nickel—
1. By its strong magnetic quality; although this is
not so great as that of nickel. 2. By its malleability,
which however is less than that of nickel. 2. By the
deep green of its solutions ; although this colour is
not so beautiful as that of the solutions of nickel.—
4. By the loss of this green colour when its neutral
combinations are deprived of water. 5. By the co-
lour of the acid solution with an excess of ammonia,
which cannot be well perceived by candle-light.
Nicolanum differs very distinctly from nickel—
1. Because it cannot be reduced without a combus-
tible body added to it. 2. Because nitric acid attacks
and oxydates it more easily. Nickel is not near so
readily acted on by the nitric acid if it is not mixed
with the nicolanum, which almost always happens with
the magnetic nickel which is considered to be in a
state of purity, and which has not been reduced per
se before the discovery. 3. It also differs from nickel
by the property first mentioned of those in which it
resembles cobalt 4. By the colour of its combinations
with the acids, when deprived of water: this colour
in nickel is almost a buff r chamois) and in nicolanum
a reddish, except in the nitrate of nicolanum, which
cannot be deprived of water without decomposing it.
5. By the colour of precipitates, mentioned in the
second and third articles concerning the properties
wherein this new metal differs from cobalt, which are
in those of nickel of a green colour, entirely different
from those of nicolanum, which latter are of a much
more agreeable green, especially those of the carbo-
nate.
118
Richter obtained this metal in the following man-
ner : he exposed the oxyd of nickel to a sufficiently
strong heat, and obtained one ounce of nickel; the
rest was converted to a kind of scoriae. This matter
was reduced to powder, mixed with charcoal, and ex-
posed for 18 hours to the strongest heat of a porcelain
furnace. Under a blackish brown scoriae, he ol tained
a metallic button, which weighed 2^ ounces, to which
he gave the name of nicolanum. The general pro-
perties of this metal are : Its colour is steel gray with
a shade of red. It is slightly malleable while cold.
It is attracted by the magnet. Its specific gravity after
fusion is 8.55 ; when hammered 8.60. It is soluble in
nitric acid, the solution has a* blackish green colour,
which galatinizes when concentrated. When the so-
lution is evaporated, a black powder, or oxyd of nico-
lanum, remains. This oxyd is insoluble in nitric acid,
unless some sugar or alcohol be added to the mixture. ,
It dissolves in muriatic acid, while oxymuriatic acid
exhales. The solution is green. The sulphate of
nicolanum exhibits the same phenomena. Carbonate
of potash precipitates nicolanum from its solution of
a pale blue colour. Ammonia renders the solution
red, but occasions no precipitate. There are two
oxyds of nicolanum ; the first is greenish blue, the se-
cond black.
For further particulars, see Gehlcn's Journal, fa,
392. and v. 394.
DraconicAcid - 24-8-2021 at 18:46
That's from 1813, and is undoubtedly a mistake on Richter's part.
https://books.google.ca/books?id=b7wNAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA116&a...
If it was a new metal, it would have to have a different number of protons in the nucleus than nickel or any known metal, and would have to be either
a known metal, or a radioactive one.
macckone - 24-8-2021 at 20:23
It was likely an alloy with nickel possibly rare earth elements.
That was before there was a good understanding of elements.
Prout's hypothesis wasn't formulated until 1815, two years after that book.
The short answer is that barring an island of stability we have identified all of the non-radioactive elements.
However new alloys are still being developed.