19 September 2024
Nickel is a transition element with a mixture of iron and non-iron properties. It is highly conductive and, in addition to being very strong, is also malleable. As a result, there are many potential uses and various benefits of nickel to found in our daily lives.
Data from nickelinstitute.org reveals that around 29 percent of all nickel supply is used for consumables and food processing, a further 25 percent is used in mobility and transportation, 14 percent supports the processing industry, 12 percent is utilized in construction, 12 percent is used in energy, and the remaining 8 percent is allocated to other uses.
But exactly how is this nickel used? Below are just some of the many benefits of nickel in daily life.
Nickel is flexible, heat resistant, and will not disintegrate when cleaned. In addition, its silvery white appearance also makes it visually attractive. As a result, nickel is widely used in combination with other metals – such as stainless steel – in a range of kitchenware, cooking utensils, and even medical equipment.
In addition, nickel alloys are able to conduct electricity, can be easily magnetized, and are resistant to corrosion. This makes them an extremely useful material in the electronics industry.
Processed products such as fertilizers, plastics, and pharmaceuticals are produced in corrosive, gas-filled, and high-temperature environments. Therefore, nickel-alloyed metals are highly favored, because they provide solutions to these challenges.
Nickel's rust-resistant and malleable properties are well-suited to a range of purposes, including architecture and construction.
For example, in infrastructure development projects, nickel-alloyed metals such as stainless steel are often used as load-bearing components in bridges. In addition, stainless steel is also used to make complementary road infrastructure such as barriers and handrails.
Stainless steel is also commonly utilized in commercial buildings as window frames, balcony supports, and building facades.
Nickel alloys are now also widely used in the energy sector, from oil and gas to power plants, and the new renewable energies industry.
In the oil and gas industry, materials with nickel alloys are widely used in piping components, valves, and vessels, etc. This is because nickel alloys are especially resistant to corrosion.
Power plants work by ‘cooking’ fuel to produce steam that will turn a turbine. Therefore, heat- and corrosion-resistant materials are needed to ensure the durability of components in boilers and heat exchangers.
Hydroelectric and wind power plants are often located at sea, which means corrosion poses a major challenge. Stainless steel and copper-nickel alloys are used to overcome this problem.
In solar power plants, materials with nickel alloys are used to capture and conduct heat that can be processed into electricity.
Another of the key benefits of nickel can be found in electric vehicles (EV), specifically as the cathodes in EV batteries.
Nickel is used for this purpose due to its ability to store comparatively more energy than other materials commonly used in batteries, such as lead. This makes it ideally suited to EV batteries, which require large amounts of energy.
Nickel is a raw material with many strategic applications, both now and in the future. At Harita Nickel, we not only mine nickel but also process nickel ore into derivative products.
Harita Nickel has a Rotary Kiln Electric Furnace (RKEF) smelter facility that is capable of processing high-grade nickel ore (saprolite) into ferronickel, which can later be processed into stainless steel.
In addition, Harita Nickel also has a High-Pressure Acid Leaching (HPAL) facility to process low-grade nickel ore (limonite) into Mixed Hydroxide Precipitate (MHP), nickel sulfate, and cobalt sulfate. These three products are the raw materials used to make cathodes in the batteries of electric vehicles.
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