Umicore | Precious Metals Management

Sponsorship Nysa

At Umicore, we attach great importance to our reputation as a 'good neighbour'. We are genuinely interested in the well-being of the region where our collaborators reside and work and we want to contribute to a sustainable development of the surroundings of our cathode materials production plant in Poland, i.e. the community of Nysa and the...

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Our metals Here you can find brief descriptions of the history, physical properties and main active applications of the metals used by our various Business Units.

Throughout the Middle Ages miners in Germany occasionally found a brownish-red ore, which they called kupfernickel, after Nick, a spirit that haunted mines. The Swedish scientist Cronstedt managed to isolate the metal in 1751 and named it nickel. Nickel only began to arouse real interest when the USA started to use a Cu-Ni alloy for its coins...

Cobalt minerals have been used as pigments since ancient times. In the 15th century, miners in the Ore Mountains (Erzgebirge) in central Europe used the term kobold for certain ores that were difficult to smelt and which, when roasted, produced toxic smokes. When melted together with sand, these roasted ores were converted into a blue glass...

Rhodium was identified in 1804 by Wollaston in a platinum ore from South America. The name is derived from the Greek ροδον (pink) on account of the pinkish-red colour of rhodium salts. Properties A silvery white, shiny metal. Does not tarnish in air. Exhibits outstanding resistance to corrosion. Endowed with high light-reflecting power...

Palladium was identified in 1803 by Wollaston in the residue after attacking impure platinum with aqua regia. It was given its name after Pallas, an asteroid discovered at approximately the same time. Properties A white metal that resembles platinum. Has the lowest volumic mass and the lowest melting point of all the platinum-group metals (...

It is difficult to date the discovery of platinum. The first samples were brought back from Ecuador by the Spaniard Ulloa in the middle of the 18th century. Small silver-like objects were made by the native Americans from a gold-platinum alloy – hence the name platina, the diminutive Spanish word for silver. Watson identified platinum metal in...

Umicore Poland's latest news, stories and press releases.

Did you know that lithium, although it is a metal, is so soft that it can be cut by a regular knife? Lithium is the lightest solid element in the periodic table. Although you may think that lithium is not very common, it is an important part of our daily lives. Umicore uses lithium when producing cathode active materials in rechargeable battery...

Did you know that manganese received its name from the Greek region of Magnesia? It is not found as a free element in nature, but it is often extracted in combination with minerals like iron. Although you may think that manganese is a pretty rare metal, it is very common in our daily life. We can find it in our stainless steel watches and in...

In our two-year young graduate program at our cathode production plant in Nysa, we prepare starting engineers for a managerial role in a technical field.