How can I tell the difference between nickel and cobalt?

Question

are there any experiements i can do to test for a difference to identify a metal?

Answer 1

their atom weight is different
Co AND Ni

Answer 2

Above is correct. We did experiments in Physical Science using Atomic weights. It been a long time. I think we used small amounts of metal and measure a specific amount of water in a measuring beaker. Drop the metal in and see how much the water rise. This gave us the displacement and then we weigh the metal to get weight. Knowing the size and weight we used the Atomic Chart to calculate what metal would weigh that much at a particular size. I not remember how the math went for an example without looking at a chart.

I wanted to add. We used abnormal shapes. If you have a round or square etc. that you can easily measure then you basically are finding size and weight.

Answer 3

Nickel melts and boils at a lower temperature. Cobalt is more brittle at sea level. Both are used with other metals to create alloys. Notice that the American 5¢ coin is made of a nickel alloy because it is more durable.

Answer 4

If you have a sample of metal and want to know which one
it is, I would use a little bit of dilute nitric or hydrochloric acid
to react with a sample of the metal. Nickel salts are green
and cobalt salts are red when they are hydrated; that is,
when they have water present. So a little dilute acid will
make a green solution with nickel and red with cobalt.
Try it and see.