Nickel is a hard, silver white metal that has beneficial physical and chemical properties that include strength, corrosion resistance, high ductility, good thermal and electrical conductivity, magnetic characteristics, and catalytic properties.
Nickel is foreign to our planet, supplied by meteorites. Large deposits of nickel are mined near Ontario, Canada where evidence of a large meteorite impact occurred. Another large world producer of nickel is Russia, but deposits are not limited to these
two large world producers.
Nickel use is largely found as an alloying element found in iron, stainless steel and copper. When used in iron it becomes a strong bulletproof product used in armor plating and bank vaults. Alloying nikel with stainless creates a strong, high temperature stainless commonly called inconel and monel and is used in machine parts and aerospace. Nikel has also been alloyed with copper to make a product called cupro nickel, used primarily in desalination pipes. Copper has been alloyed with 25% nickel to make the U.S. 5-cent “nickel” (you MAY NOT recycle these). You will also find nikel in ni-cad ( nickel cadium ) batteries and a very powerful magnet called alnico. The use for nickel is continually growing and may be found in many other alloyed products.
Nickel value is usually quite higher than most other common metals but still tremendously lower than a defined precious metals. It will usually take a well experienced metal buyer/handler to determine this element and/or its alloys.