Facts at your Fingertips: Nickel-based Superalloys

Superalloys, also known as high-performance alloys, are considered as materials of construction for process equipment in applications involving high temperatures, highly corrosive environments and those requiring high strength properties. Many commonly used superalloys in the chemical process industries (CPI) use nickel as their primary metal. This one-page reference provides information on Ni and reviews common Ni superalloys, including combinations of Ni with chromium, copper, iron, molybdenum, cobalt, titanium and other elements. Nickel Ni appears as a silvery-white metal, and is magnetic at ambient temperature. Its abundance in the earth’s crust is 0.009%, a substantial amount of which arrived with meteorites. The world’s nickel resources are currently estimated at almost 300 million tons, according to the Nickel Institute (Toronto, Ont.; www.nickelinstitute.org). Australia, Indonesia, South Africa, Russia and Canada account for more than 50% of global nickel resources. The minerals from which most nickel is extracted are iron/nickel sulfides such as pentlandite. It is also found in other minerals, including garnierite. Under the unified numbering system (UNS) for metals, nickel and Ni-based alloys are designated with the…