Nickel

Nickel is a hard, tough, malleable, ductile, lustrous, silver-grey metal with a face-centered cubic crystalline structure. It is ferromagnetic and has an electrical conductivity, which is about one-six of that of copper.

Nickel may occasionally occur in the native state (it is found in association with iron in many meteorites) but most of the time it occurs combined with sulfur in millerite, with arsenic in the mineral niccolite and with arsenic and sulphur in nickel glance.

The most widely distributed mineral is pentlandite (Fe,Ni)9S8, which is often associated with pyrrhotite FeS and Chalcopyrite CuFeS2. The sulphide ores are easy to concentrate and account for the major part of the nickel produced in Australia, Canada and Siberia.

Lateritic oxide minerals are another majoir source of nickel. They cannot be enriched, however, so the ores must be processed in their original condition.
The cost of producing nickel from sulphide ores is higher, due to the high cost of underground mining. On the other side, sulphide ores contain more recoverable by-products, such as the platinum-group metals, so they are less dependent on economic cycles.

Nickel can also be extracted from deep-sea-nodules, which may contain up to 1,3% Ni.
About 65% of the nickel consumed in the Western World is used to make austenitic stainless steel. Another 12% goes into superalloys (metal mixtures designed to withstand extremely high temperatures and/or pressures, or to have high electrical conductivity). The remaining 23% of consumption is divided between alloy steels, rechargeable batteries, catalysts and other chemicals, coinage, foundry products, and plating. Divided nickel is a catalyst for hydrogenating vegetable oils.


Links:
-International Nickel Study Group - Statistics 2000 - 2003
-The Nickel Institute
-NIPERA-The Nickel Producers Environmental Research Association




Nickel Production
Thousand Tonnes