Material Description
Nickel-base alloys are specified where steel and stainless steel fail: strongly corrosive process chemistry, sour service, sea water, high-temperature oxidation and creep. That service history is what produces the scrap. Typical sources are decommissioned chemical and petrochemical process equipment, heat exchangers and reactor internals, aerospace and gas-turbine manufacturing arisings, fabrication offcuts from specialist workshops, and machining turnings from companies working nickel-base bar and plate.
Unlike commodity stainless, nickel alloys are traded close to grade. A corrosion-resistant nickel-molybdenum alloy, a nickel-chromium-iron heat-resisting alloy and a precipitation-hardening aerospace superalloy look broadly similar in a skip and have very different destinations. Segregation, documentation and identification are therefore the substance of this specification rather than an appendix to it.
Chemistry is grade-dependent. This page does not state a guaranteed composition: alloy family, element ranges and any deleterious-element limits must be confirmed for the specific lot by material identification, XRF or OES analysis, mill certificates where available, or an agreed inspection before shipment.
Accepted Forms
Material is offered in one or more of the presentations below; where a lot spans several of them, each form is packed and described as its own fraction.
- •Plate, sheet and strip offcuts from fabrication, in identified grade lots where possible
- •Pipe, tube, fittings, flanges and heat-exchanger tube bundles
- •Bar ends, forged blanks, rings and machined component rejects
- •Process equipment: vessel sections, agitators, internals and pump and valve bodies
- •Turnings and chips from machining, drained and packed separately from solids
- •Wire, mesh, gauze and welding-consumable arisings in clean, identified condition
Typical Alloy Families
The families below describe how the market groups this material. Family names are used descriptively to indicate where a piece belongs; they are not a chemistry claim about any lot.
- •Nickel-copper alloys used in marine and sea-water service
- •Nickel-chromium and nickel-chromium-iron heat-resisting alloys
- •Nickel-molybdenum and nickel-chromium-molybdenum corrosion-resistant alloys
- •Precipitation-hardening nickel-base superalloys from aerospace and turbine manufacture
- •Commercially pure and low-alloy nickel, including anode and electroforming arisings
- •Cobalt-bearing nickel-base grades, which stay in this stream rather than the cobalt stream
Grade Segregation and Identification
Segregation at source is worth more on this material than on any other stream in the specialty group. A fabricator who keeps each grade in its own labelled bin produces a lot that can be evaluated directly; a workshop that combines everything into one skip produces a mixed lot that has to be sorted, tested or discounted before it can move.
Identification in practice is instrument-led. Nickel alloys are largely non-magnetic, visually similar to stainless and to each other, and impossible to grade reliably by appearance. XRF screening on a clean, ground surface separates the main families quickly by reading nickel, chromium, molybdenum, iron, copper, cobalt, niobium and titanium.
Where mill certificates, heat numbers or piece marking survive on the material, they are kept with the lot. Documentation does not replace verification, but it substantially reduces the amount of testing needed to reach a confident description.
Contamination and Exclusions
The items below are what typically reduces the recoverable value of a lot or, at the end of the list, keeps it out of the stream altogether.
- •Carbon steel and stainless steel fittings, flanges, supports and frames attached to nickel alloy components
- •Insulation, refractory lining, gasket material, ceramic packing and internal catalyst residue
- •Paint, plating, cladding and weld overlay where the base metal is a different material
- •Process residue inside pipework and vessels; equipment must be cleaned and drained before shipment
- •Free liquid, cutting fluid and grinding sludge in turnings drums
- •Sealed, pressurised, radioactive or chemically hazardous equipment, which is excluded from this stream
- •Clad plate, where a thin nickel alloy layer sits on a steel backing and the piece is mostly steel by weight
Preparation and Packaging
The preparation that matters commercially is removing steel and insulation, cutting oversized equipment to a size the receiving yard can handle, and keeping identified grades apart from unidentified ones. Cutting scope, method and any size limit should be agreed before work starts so the lot arrives in the form the buyer expects.
- •Solids in strapped bundles, boxes or bins sized for safe forklift handling
- •Turnings drained of free liquid and packed in closed drums or bulk bags as agreed
- •Grade identity, heat number or family marked on each package where known
- •Unidentified material packed and labelled as unidentified rather than absorbed into a graded fraction
- •Photographic record and any surviving mill documentation retained in the lot file
Buyer and Seller Specification Notes
A complete enquiry states the alloy family or grade and how it was established, the physical forms and weight split, whether the material is fabrication arisings or service returns, cleaning status for process equipment, available documentation, packing at the loading point, and the destination port.
Assured chemistry, deleterious-element limits and any acceptance window belong in the sales contract together with the sampling protocol and the analysis method. Indicative family-level identification before contract does not perform that function.
Specification Table
The table records typical procurement characteristics for this stream. Values that depend on grade or lot are stated as such — they are not guaranteed figures and do not replace a contractual specification.
| Material category | Nickel and nickel alloy scrap (secondary raw material) |
|---|---|
| Accepted forms | Plate, sheet, pipe, tube, fittings, bar ends, process equipment, fabrication offcuts, turnings |
| Typical alloy families | Ni-Cu, Ni-Cr and Ni-Cr-Fe, Ni-Mo and Ni-Cr-Mo, precipitation-hardening superalloys, commercially pure nickel |
| Composition | Chemistry is grade-dependent. This page does not state a guaranteed composition: alloy family, element ranges and any deleterious-element limits must be confirmed for the specific lot by material identification, XRF or OES analysis, mill certificates where available, or an agreed inspection before shipment. |
| Grade segregation | Segregation by grade at source materially affects evaluation; unidentified material is packed and labelled as unidentified |
| Identification | XRF or OES screening on prepared surfaces, supported by mill certificates, heat numbers and piece marking where they survive |
| Common contamination | Steel and stainless attachments, insulation and refractory, gaskets, coatings, process residue, free liquid in turnings |
| Exclusions | Sealed or pressurised assemblies, radioactive or chemically hazardous equipment, uncleaned process vessels, clad plate offered as solid alloy |
| Preparation | Steel and insulation removed where practical; oversized equipment cut to agreed size; turnings drained and packed separately |
| Typical packaging | Strapped bundles, boxes or bins for solids; closed drums or agreed bulk packaging for turnings; labelled by grade where known |
| Inspection | Third-party inspection can be arranged at the loading location; scope and appointment agreed in the sales contract |
| Documentation | Commercial invoice, packing list and transport documents; mill certificates or analysis where they exist and have been agreed; waste-shipment and customs documentation as required by the specific trade lane |
Inspection and Analysis
Identification of nickel alloys is instrument work, not visual work. Screening on a ground clean surface separates the principal families and detects steel and stainless carry-over; it is the routine sorting tool for this stream and is used before packing rather than after arrival.
Contractual chemistry is different in kind. Melt-based or drilled-sample laboratory analysis with an agreed sampling plan is what establishes a figure that can be relied on, particularly for lots containing clad, welded or overlaid material where a surface reading describes the surface and not the piece.
Limitations of screening analysis
- •Handheld XRF reads a small surface area of the piece it is pointed at; scale, paint, plating, coatings, oxide and machining residue all bias that reading.
- •Handheld instruments read alloying elements well but are weak or blind on light elements — carbon in particular — so they cannot separate grades that differ mainly by carbon content.
- •A reading on one piece is not a lot average. Mixed-grade lots require representative sampling across packages, layers and size fractions before a figure is treated as commercially meaningful.
- •Screening results are used to sort and to open a price discussion. Contractual figures require the sampling protocol, laboratory method and acceptance criteria the parties have agreed in writing.
Inspection scope, appointed inspector and sampling protocol are set out on our inspection services page and must be agreed in the sales contract before shipment.
Customs Classification
Customs classification for nickel-bearing secondary material depends on the actual composition and physical form of the goods, on whether the material is solid scrap, turnings, powder or residue, on the destination country and on how the competent authority in that jurisdiction interprets the material description.
Mixed-grade and mixed-family lots can create additional classification complexity, because the description of the goods on the invoice and packing list must reflect what is actually shipped rather than the best fraction in the load.
Nautica does not assign a definitive tariff code in advance for this stream. Buyers and importers should confirm the applicable classification, duty treatment and any import licensing or waste-shipment obligation with their own customs broker or the competent customs authority for the destination before contracting.
Frequently asked questions
Technical and Commercial Disclaimer
This document describes typical characteristics of a secondary raw material stream. Scrap of this type is heterogeneous by nature: composition, alloy or binder content, contamination and recoverable content vary between lots and within a single lot.
Nothing on this page constitutes a guaranteed specification, a warranty of composition, a declaration of purity or an offer capable of acceptance. Guaranteed specifications, tolerances, sampling protocol, analysis method, acceptance criteria, deduction mechanics and rejection rights exist only where they are written into the signed sales contract between buyer and seller for a specific lot.
Where a buyer requires assured values, those values must be defined contractually and verified by an agreed inspection or analysis procedure before shipment.
Document reference: /specifications/nickel-alloy-scrap · Last reviewed 2026-08-14.