Nickel

The KE Valve Stockist supplier of nickel 200 gate, globe, check, ball, butterfly, plug, needle and custom made valves. As a valve stockist, we stock, supply and distribute valves in exotic materials such as titanium, hastelloy, duplex, super duplex, monel, incoloy, inconel, alloy 20, 254 SMO, 6 Moly,tantalum, zirconium, uranus, 904L both in stock and can also deliver against tight lead times. The fraction of global nickel production presently used for various applications is as follows: 46% for making nickel steels; 34% in nonferrous alloys and superalloys; 14% electroplating, and 6% into other uses. Nickel is used in many specific and recognizable industrial and consumer products, including stainless steel, alnico magnets, coinage, rechargeable batteries, electric guitar strings, microphone capsules, and special alloys. It is also used for plating and as a green tint in glass. Nickel is preeminently an alloy metal, and its chief use is in the nickel steels and nickel cast irons, of which there are many varieties. It is also widely used in many other alloys, such as nickel brasses and bronzes, and alloys with copper, chromium, aluminium, lead, cobalt, silver, and gold (Inconel, Incoloy, Monel, Nimonic). Because of its resistance to corrosion, nickel has been occasionally used historically as a substitute for decorative silver. Nickel was also occasionally used in some countries after 1859 as a cheap coinage metal but beginning the later years of the 20th century has largely replaced by cheaper stainless steel (i.e., iron) alloys, except notably in the United States. Nickel is an excellent alloying agent for certain other precious metals, and so used in the so-called fire assay, as a collector of platinum group elements (PGE). As such, nickel is capable of full collection of all 6 PGE elements from ores, in addition to partial collection of gold. High-throughput nickel mines may also engage in PGE recovery (primarily platinum and palladium); examples are Norilsk in Russia and the Sudbury Basin in Canada. Nickel foam or nickel mesh is used in gas diffusion electrodes for alkaline fuel cells. Nickel and its alloys are frequently used as catalysts for hydrogenation reactions. Raney nickel, a finely divided nickel-aluminium alloy, is one common form, however related catalysts are also often used, including related ‘Raney-type’ catalysts. Nickel is a naturally magnetostrictive material, meaning that, in the presence of a magnetic field, the material undergoes a small change in length. In the case of nickel, this change in length is negative (contraction of the material), which is known as negative magnetostriction and is on the order of 50 ppm. Nickel is used as a binder in the cemented tungsten carbide or hardmetal industry and used in proportions of six to 12% by weight. Nickel can make the tungsten carbide magnetic and adds corrosion-resistant properties to the cemented tungsten carbide parts, although the hardness is lower than those of parts made with cobalt binder.