[5] Ni(CO)4 was first synthesised in 1890 by Ludwig Mond by the direct reaction of nickel metal with carbon monoxide.

[6] This pioneering work foreshadowed the existence of many other metal carbonyl compounds, including those of vanadium, chromium, manganese, iron, and cobalt.

Nickel carbonyl may be fatal if absorbed through the skin or more likely, inhaled due to its high volatility.

Some subjects exposed to puffs up to 5 ppm described the odour as musty or sooty, but because the compound is so exceedingly toxic, its smell provides no reliable warning against a potentially fatal exposure.

The second phase is a chemical pneumonitis which starts after typically 16 hours with symptoms of cough, breathlessness and extreme fatigue.

These reach greatest severity after four days, possibly resulting in death from cardiorespiratory or acute kidney injury.

11002), and is subject to strict reporting requirements by facilities which produce, store, or use it in significant quantities.

In the 1979 novella Amanda Morgan by Gordon R. Dickson, the remaining inhabitants of a mostly evacuated village resist an occupying military force by directing the exhaust from a poorly-tuned internal combustion engine onto a continually renewed "waste heap" of powdered nickel outside a machine shop (under the guise of civilian business) in order to eliminate the occupiers, at the cost of their own lives.

In chapter 199 of the manga Dr. Stone, a machine is made that purifies nickel via the Mond Process.

In the 2019 novel Delta-v from New York Times bestselling author Daniel Suarez a team of eight private miners reach a near-earth asteroid to extract volatiles (water, CO2, etc.)

and metals (iron, nickel and cobalt); these are stored as solid carbonyl for transfer back to near Earth orbit, and used for in-situ fabrication of a spacecraft, via decomposition in vacuum.