Dr. Veronique Steukers sets out three principles which will allow companies to manage and measure ESG impacts and engage on a path to improvement.
As much of the world heads to the polls this year, Veronique Steukers explains why newly elected lawmakers should care about nickel and why they should consider three policy asks.
Nickel can be found in many forms from nanowires to stainless steel alloys. But what are the properties of nickel that make it an essential element in batteries?
Reducing energy-related CO2 emissions is pivotal to limiting climate change, with the main drivers to bring about the required carbon reductions being renewable energy and energy efficiency. Concentrated solar power is one such renewable energy technology set to increase dramatically in the foreseeable future. It will need to provide energy at a competitive cost to outshine the competition.
Solar farms are blooming in fields across the globe and producing a new crop: solar energy. Photovoltaic (PV) systems made up of solar panels, are fast becoming the most recognisable of renewable energy technologies.
Materials selection for any piece of equipment or a process system is rarely a simple task, unless you are exactly replicating something successful. Often engineers will have a checklist to help them narrow down the choices, eliminating groups of materials that are not suitable for various reasons. Austenitic 300 series stainless steels containing 7-35% nickel will have most if not all of the boxes checked for being suitable where a stainless steel is desired.
Awareness about robustness and durability of bridge design has grown since Morandi’s time. The new San Giorgio Bridge (its successor) in Genoa was designed by Renzo Piano and inaugurated in 2020.
The selection of an alloy should be guided by careful examination of the needs of the application. Before making a switch, it’s important to fully investigate an alloy’s strengths, weaknesses and applicability to your structure.
More than ten years on from the implementation of the EU’s REACH regulation, NiPERA’s Tara Lyons-Darden looks back and shares some of the learnings and the challenges of maintaining REACH dossiers from the perspective of the Nickel REACH Consortia.
While it may require an initial higher investment when compared with other materials, stainless steel’s unique properties deliver long-term performance and economic benefits including minimum downtime, reduced maintenance costs and reduced environmental impacts.
As delegates to the UN COP26 Climate Change conference in Glasgow grapple with the climate crisis, clean energy solutions will be in focus. Although clean energy technologies rely on metals and minerals that are unavoidably energy intensive to produce, the IEA says that the climate advantages of these technologies remain clear.
Nickel-based alloys and nickel-containing stainless are playing key roles in an emerging source of renewable energy known as thermal solar plants or concentrated solar power (CSP). Their use has enabled the industry to overcome challenges in heat transfer and thermal storage technology.
The many new and innovative applications of hydrogen as fuel show great promise for a greener future.
Steven Verpaele, the Nickel Institute’s Industrial Hygienist explains the different ways that the work he leads is helping to contributing to the culture of occupational safety and health that respects the right to a safe and healthy working environment at all levels.
As electric vehicles (EVs) trend from being niche to mass scale and the lines between EVs and their combustion engine (ICE) counterparts get blurred in terms of usability, consumers, automakers, governments and fire departments continue to have some apprehensions.
A new generation of designers, materials specifiers, architects and engineers is being introduced to the wealth of technical information curated by the Nickel Institute. An archive of technical guides and know-how for working with nickel-containing materials, including stainless steel, that has been built over thirty years is now being updated and made freely available.
The present-day principal driver in the Li-ion industry is the large batteries required for electric vehicles. Due to the size of these batteries and the relative growth of electric vehicles it is predicted that the total Li-ion energy capacity will exceed one tera watt-hour by 2030. This anticipation for a dramatically rapidly expanding industry has stakeholders all along the value chain very motivated to be ready.
When Courtney Love wrote this she was not thinking about rockets. It is, however, a perfect description of the history of rocketry. Until the Elon Musk revolution.
The last three months have been unprecedented. But amidst the chaos and despite the drop in global GDP, there has still been a considerable amount of activity in the electric vehicle (EV) and battery world.
Space is hard but nickel makes it possible. The United States of America, through the private company SpaceX, imminently expects to regain its independent way into space.
Food safety starts with rigorous hygiene, and nickel-containing stainless steels are the superior, reliable standard at every link of the food chain.
Around two-thirds of today’s buildings will still be around in 2050, and by 2060, the world is projected to add 230 billion m² of buildings - an area equivalent to the entire current global building stock. What can the building and construction sector do to reduce the environmental burden of buildings?
Ever-tightening sulphur oxide (SOx) emission regulations are increasing the use of marine scrubbers globally. Scrubbers operate in a highly corrosive environment and require the resilience of nickel-containing alloys to prevent failure.
The electric vehicle market is expected to be by far the largest and most dominant market for lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries. Despite the strong desire to increase EV sales by all involved in the value chain, proliferation has been curbed due to the high cost to the consumer and the perceived disadvantages of owning an EV. Range anxiety, a lack of charging stations and fire safety worries, are among the top concerns.
Nickel’s role in enabling technologies is not always common knowledge. Yet its versatile properties present great opportunity for the nickel industry.
Most nickel production is destined for stainless steel. But a significant 8% is used in the production of alloy steels which are needed to deliver specific characteristics for specialised and often critical applications.
Partially corrugated stainless steel service pipes have reduced water leakage rates drastically in Tokyo where they were introduced in the 1980s. Now other innovative water authorities faced with the urgent need to reduce water loss are also examining the nickel-containing stainless steel solution.