Cobalt Cobalt Cobalt is a chemical element with symbol Co and atomic number 27. Like nickel, cobalt is found in the Earth's crust only in chemically combined form, save for small deposits found in alloys of natural meteoric iron. The free element, produced by reductive smelting, is a hard, lustrous, silver-gray metal. Cobalt-based blue pigments (cobalt blue) have been used since ancient times for jewelry and paints, and to impart a distinctive blue tint to glass, but the color was later thought by alchemists to be due to the known metal bismuth. Miners had long used the name "kobold ore" (German
Cobalt glass Cobalt glass Cobalt glass—known as "smalt" when ground as a pigment—is a deep blue colored glass prepared by including a cobalt compound, typically cobalt oxide or cobalt carbonate, in a glass melt. Cobalt is a very intense glass colorant and very little is required to show a noticeable amount of color. Cobalt blue glass is also used as an optical filter in flame tests to filter out the yellow flame caused by contamination with sodium, and expand the ability to see violet and blue hues. Moderately ground cobalt glass (potassium cobalt silicate)—called "smalt"—has been historically important as a pigment in