Nickel is one of those materials that have few uses by themselves but are integral to a single process with a single companion material that makes it absolutely essential to every single economic sector. Standard steel bends and rusts and corrodes and warps and loses some of its coherence with high or low temperatures. But add about 3.5 percent nickel and a splash of chromium to the steel mix, and you get an alloy that is both stronger and largely eliminates those concerns. We colloquially know this product as “stainless”—the backbone of nearly all steel used in every single application. The
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