This fact sheet answers the most frequently asked health questions about nickel. This fact sheet is one in a series of summaries about hazardous substances and their health effects. This information is important because this substance may harm you. The effects of exposure to any hazardous substance depend on the dose, the duration, how you are exposed, personal traits and habits, and whether other chemicals are present. Nickel is a hard, silvery-white metal used to make stainless steel and other metal alloys.
Skin effects are the most common effects in people who are sensitive to nickel.
Workers who breathed very large amounts of nickel compounds have developed lung and nasal sinus cancers. Nickel is a very abundant element. It is found in all soils and is emitted from volcanos. Pure nickel is a hard, silvery-white metal that is combined with other metals to form mixtures called alloys. Some of the metals that nickel can be alloyed with are iron, copper, chromium, and zinc.