It’s believed that the first nickel alloy was used in 200 BCE in China. That’s the earliest record available, and the material was referred to as “white copper,” which experts believe was an alloy of nickel and silver. Fast forward to 1751, A. F. Cronstedt, a German scientist, managed to isolate nickel from the niccolite mineral. Copper and zinc were often found in these first nickel alloys, which came to be known as “German silver” and weren’t really used for anything other than ornaments.
After James Riley made an iron-chromium alloy in 1913, W. H. Hatfield figured out that adding nickel to these alloys would make them incredibly corrosion-resistant. This led to the creation of what we now know as austenitic stainless steel.
