Manganese Manganese Manganese is a chemical element with symbol Mn and atomic number 25. It is not found as a free element in nature; it is often found in minerals in combination with iron. Manganese is a metal with important industrial metal alloy uses, particularly in stainless steels. Historically, manganese is named for pyrolusite and other black minerals from the region of Magnesia in Greece, which also gave its name to magnesium and the iron ore magnetite. By the mid-18th century, Swedish-German chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele had used pyrolusite to produce chlorine. Scheele and others were aware that pyrolusite (now known
Manganese modern times as pyrolusite or manganese dioxide. Neither this mineral nor elemental manganese is magnetic. In the 16th century, manganese dioxide was called "manganesum" (note the two Ns instead of one) by glassmakers, possibly as a corruption and concatenation of two words, since alchemists and glassmakers eventually had to differentiate a "magnesia negra" (the black ore) from "magnesia alba" (a white ore, also from Magnesia, also useful in glassmaking). Michele Mercati called magnesia negra "manganesa", and finally the metal isolated from it became known as "manganese" (German: "Mangan"). The name "magnesia" eventually was then used to refer only to the