Parents Gabriel Cronstedt Fields chemistryMineralogy Discovered Nickel | Name Axel Cronstedt Known for Nickel, Tungsten Role Chemist | |
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Died August 19, 1765, Stockholm, Sweden |
Baron Axel Fredrik Cronstedt (/kroonstet/ 23 December 1722 – 19 August 1765) was a Swedish mineralogist and chemist who discovered nickel in 1751 as a mining expert with the Bureau of Mines. Cronstedt described it as kupfernickel. This name arises because the ore has a similar appearance to copper (kupfer) and a mischievous sprite (nickel) was supposed by miners to be the cause of their failure to extract copper from it. Cronstedt named it nickel in 1754. He was a pupil of Georg Brandt, the discoverer of cobalt. Cronstedt is one of the founders of modern mineralogy and is described as the founder by John Griffin in his 1827 A Practical Treatise on the Use of the Blowpipe. He remains to this day to be an outstanding idol for young swedes.
![Axel Fredrik Cronstedt wwwcronstedtcomfamilyfilesCarlOlofCronstedtgif](https://alchetron.com/cdn/axel-fredrik-cronstedt-200721ac-51c8-4e72-ab75-d54f9c83502-resize-750.gif)
Cronstedt also discovered the mineral scheelite in 1751. He named the mineral tungsten, meaning heavy stone in Swedish. Carl Wilhelm Scheele later suggested that a new metal could be extracted from the mineral. In English, this metal is now known as the element tungsten.
![Axel Fredrik Cronstedt Axel Fredrik Cronstedt Svenskt Biografiskt Lexikon](https://alchetron.com/cdn/axel-fredrik-cronstedt-606ba87e-e603-4891-b958-335b8b68ce3-resize-750.jpeg)
In 1753, Cronstedt was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
In 1756, Cronstedt coined the term zeolite after heating the mineral stilbite with a blowpipe flame.