In Part 2 of this series we dig deeper into the specifics of laterites, one of the two main nickel ore types and look at smelting, the most common processing technique.
Heather Allain, Executive Director, Materials Technology Institute (MTI), tells us about her passion for materials and the importance of MTI’s work to provide awareness of safe, reliable and sustainable materials use.
Let's dive into this new series of articles on sustainability, treatment processes and innovations in nickel production, starting with nickel ores.
China’s annual “two sessions” gives an indication of China’s broad policy direction for the year, covering topics from the economy to industrial strategy to environmental protection. David Chen explains the highlights, and the implications for the nickel value chain.
Mark Mistry and Marco Vallini argue that for the EU Critical Raw Materials Act to fulfil its promise to address the energy transition, industry needs planning security for both ‘critical’ and ‘strategic’ raw materials.
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.
The sudden failure of a building or bridge is mercifully a rare event, thanks largely to international or national standards: structures are designed in accordance with a design standard, using products conforming to a product standard and manufactured using techniques and to a quality level defined in a construction standard.
Each family of stainless steels has its strengths and weaknesses. Ferritic stainless steels have useful properties – a lower rate of thermal expansion, higher thermal conductivity, strong ferromagnetism and very high resistance to chloride stress corrosion cracking (SCC). When looking at selecting any alloys, it is important to consider all the factors for successful usage.
The duplex alloys are “problem-solving alloys” for good reason, they have been successfully used in many places where carbon steels and standard austenitic alloys have failed. Just like with the austenitic family, there are many different duplex alloys to choose from, with corrosion resistance varying from moderate with the lean duplex alloys to very high with the superduplex alloys.
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.
The proposed Regulation will introduce a wide range of sustainability requirements and promote the recycling of key battery raw materials like nickel. EU legislative work is entering a crucial phase.
Think of the largest cruise ship. Then imagine how much it weighs – just over 100,000 tonnes, in fact. Now think about 500 of those ships, and what they weigh. That is the staggering amount of new electronic waste that we generate every year.
Major economies across the globe are setting climate neutrality targets. But proper measurement and methodologies are needed to provide transparency and common benchmarks when assessing carbon footprint. At a recent event in China, there was general consensus on the importance of adopting a harmonized approach to carbon footprint calculation and disclosure.
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.
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.
Even small quantities of nickel in an application can make a big difference to successful deployment.
Geothermal energy for electric power production has a low profile yet is significant in the current and potential energy mix for a number of countries. It has also been described as the most reliable of the renewable energy sources, above weather-dependent wind, solar and hydropower.
The upstream and midstream oil and gas industries rely on nickel-containing corrosion resistant alloys for flowlines and risers. Rodrigo Signorelli, Outokumpu’s lead technical manager for marine and energy, explains how alloys reach the market.
The many new and innovative applications of hydrogen as fuel show great promise for a greener future.
Dr. Ilias Belharouak is the head of electrification and energy storage at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. In this Battery Chat, he talks to Parri Adeli about the various energy storage topics his group are investigating including a new class of cathodes that they developed recently and its scale-up path.
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.
New advances in the use of Artificial Intelligence have the potential to speed up the process of alloy development.
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.
New energy legislation is set to optimize China’s energy structure and boost the use of non-fossil energy. Aligning with China’s regulatory agenda, nickel will play a vital role in tomorrow’s world powered by cleaner energy.