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Material World
Mineral · (Ni,Fe)9S8

Pentlandite

An iron nickel sulfide — the world's principal nickel ore, and the mineral behind most stainless steel and most battery nickel.

Ore

Pentlandite is the world's main nickel ore, and its formula is written with nickel and iron bracketed together because the two substitute freely — the mineral does not choose between them, and the ratio varies with the deposit.

It forms from sulfide liquid separating out of a cooling magma, which is why it occurs with pyrrhotite and chalcopyrite in the same intrusions, and why nickel, copper and the platinum-group metals so often come out of one mine.

Economic significance

Two thirds of nickel goes into stainless steel, where it stabilises the structure that makes the alloy tough as well as corrosion-resistant. The share going into battery cathodes has grown quickly, and those two markets want different products — battery nickel must be far purer, which has made the sulfide ores pentlandite provides more valuable than the laterite ores that supply much of the stainless market.

The platinum-group metals recovered alongside are often a substantial part of a mine's revenue, in the same way that anode slimes are for a copper refinery.

Medium confidence Weak evidence

How we know: checked recently · only one source, so there is nothing to cross-check it against · stated directly by the source.

How this connects

Where a connection has been confirmed by an outside reference, that reference is named beside it.

is an ore of

  • Nickel — element · the principal ore of nickel worldwide Wikidata

is an input to

  • Roasting — process · a sulfide, roasted before reduction like the others
  • Froth flotation — process · with the copper sulfides and the platinum-group minerals that accompany it, all of which report to the same concentrate

is a component of

  • Gabbro — rock · the nickel sulfide of layered intrusions, concentrated where the magma became saturated in sulfur

contains

  • Iron — element · substitutes within a solid solution — an individual specimen may hold little of it Wikidata
  • Nickel — element · substitutes within a solid solution — an individual specimen may hold little of it Wikidata
  • Sulfur — element Wikidata

Sources

  • Material World
    Our own writing
  • Wikidata
    Wikimedia Foundation · Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal (public domain dedication)

Questions this page answers

Where it comes from, and what it becomes

Follow Pentlandite back to what it starts as, and forward into what it becomes. Each step is a documented one — a real route material takes, not a chain of inference.

Downstream — what it becomes

  • Pentlandite → is a component of (the nickel sulfide of layered intrusions, concentrated where the magma became saturated in sulfur) → Gabbro → is an input to (for the dark polished cladding and memorials sold as black granite) → Quarrying → produces (cut rather than blasted, because a quarry that shatters its stone has destroyed what it came for) → Dimension stone → is used in (quarried rather than mined, and the distinction is legal and technical rather than merely a word) → Mining and quarrying → is associated with (steam pumping allowed mines below the water table, which is what made deep coal possible) → Industrial Revolution complete chain
  • Pentlandite → is an input to (with the copper sulfides and the platinum-group minerals that accompany it, all of which report to the same concentrate) → Froth flotation → is used in (the process that made low-grade disseminated sulfide deposits economic, and therefore made the modern copper industry) → Mining and quarrying → is associated with (steam pumping allowed mines below the water table, which is what made deep coal possible) → Industrial Revolution complete chain
  • Pentlandite → is an input to (a sulfide, roasted before reduction like the others) → Roasting → produces (as the oxide, which is then reduced — roasting is the step that makes zinc sulfide smeltable) → Zinc → is an input to (the addition that makes brass; it boils below copper's melting point, which is the difficulty) → Alloying and melting → produces (zinc dissolved into molten copper, under conditions that stop the zinc boiling off) → Brass → is used as (in air rather than seawater — brass dezincifies in chloride) → Corrosion protection
  • Pentlandite → is an ore of (the principal ore of nickel worldwide) → Nickel → is a source for (obtained largely as a by-product of nickel mining) → Palladium → is used in (in petrol exhaust, and the largest single use of the metal in the world) → Catalytic converter → is used as (the largest catalytic application by metal value there is) → Catalysis
  • Pentlandite → is an ore of (the principal ore of nickel worldwide) → Nickel → is a source for (a by-product of nickel refining) → Ruthenium → is a component of (in the newest generations, to stop the heavy elements segregating into phases that embrittle the blade) → Nickel superalloy → is used as (the turbine blade carries its own centrifugal load at four fifths of its melting point, which is structural engineering under the hardest conditions anybody attempts) → Structural engineering
  • Pentlandite → is an ore of (the principal ore of nickel worldwide) → Nickel → is a source for (and of nickel refining, where the platinum-group metals collect) → Osmium → is used as (osmium-iridium tips resist wear where a point must not blunt) → Abrasive

These are the most distinct paths onward. Pentlandite ends up in others besides.