Nickel: Stainless Steel for Safe Products

Nickel is primarily used as an alloy metal, mainly in stainless steels and nickel cast irons.  In fact, its role in alloys dates to 3500 BC, when bronzes from what is now Syria contained up to 2% nickel.

Today, two-thirds of the nickel produced in the Western World goes into stainless steels that contribute to our standard of living.  These steels are the materials of choice for safely processing, transporting and storing food, water and dairy, and chemical processing and medical applications, because they offer a combination of easy cleaning, straightforward fabrication, appearance, and availability.  Stainless is also increasingly popular for domestic kitchen equipment and utensils.  The nickel in stainless steels promotes a stable, ductile, austenitic structure as well as improving corrosion resistance. 

Stainless steels are highly cost-effective when all lifecycle costs, including maintenance and repair, are considered. This is partly why the use of stainless continues to grow at average rate of 6.0% per year.

Nickel also goes into superalloys, which are crucial to the aerospace industry.  Turbine blades, discs and other critical jet engine parts fabricated from superalloys reduce weight and enable engines to run at higher temperatures for improved fuel efficiency and reduced noise.  Nickel-base superalloys also used in land-based combustion turbines, such those at electric power generation stations.

Nickel is widely used for many corrosion-resistant alloys.   The metal’s corrosion resistance is one of its most valuable properties, as the estimated cost of corrosion in the U.S. alone is $300 billion annually – or as much as 4% of the gross national product.

Nickel plating on plastics produces durable, lightweight items such as automobile trim and bathroom fittings.  In computer hard disks, nickel forms a non-magnetic substrate for the magnetic recording layer and protects the underlying aluminum disc from corrosion.  Nickel added to glass gives it a green color.

Nickel’s role as a catalyst in chemical processes is perhaps the least-known of its uses. But it’s key to reactions including vegetable oil hydrogenation and fertilizer, pesticide and fungicide production.

Increasingly, new uses are emerging for nickel.  At least five automobile manufacturers plan to use nickel-metal hydride batteries to power 2007 and 2008 hybrid vehicles.  Rechargeable battery systems and uninterruptible power supply systems that use nickel are increasingly important to society’s efficiency and productivity.  Substitute metals tend to increase cost or comprise product performance.

The U.S. has no active nickel mines and imports 100% of our primary nickel supply.  We use about 10% of the world’s primary nickel (2002); most is from Sudbury region of Ontario, Canada, which produces about 30% of the world’s nickel.  Fourteen percent of our nickel comes from Russia.  The U.S. consumes about 226,000 metric tonnes of nickel each year and the Birch Lake Project would generate an anticipated 19 million pounds.  Nickel stainless steels are also one of the most recycled materials, because they can be re-used without degradation.

Matching short-term nickel supply to demand will always be a challenge, especially when demand grows as quickly as it has over the last decade.  Some nickel users are concerned that global demand will outpace supply before new mining projects are completed.