Many industrial and consumer products use nickel including stainless steel, magnets, coinage, rechargeable batteries, electric guitar strings and special alloys, It can also be used for plating and as a green tint in glass. Since nickel is an alloy metal 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, aluminum, lead, cobalt, silver and gold.
The amounts of nickel used for various applications are:
- 60% for making nickel steels
- 14% used in nickel-copper alloys and nickel silver
- 9% used to make malleable nickel, nickel clad, Inconel and other superalloys
- 6% used in plating
- 3% used for nickel cast irons
- 3% used in heat and electric resistance alloys such as Nichrome
- 2% used for nickel brasses and bronzes
- with the remianing 3% of the nickel consumption in all other applications combined.
