How is nickel refined, brought to market?

Answer 1

Very expensively. For starters Nickel is relatively rare. Typically it is found either bonded with sulfur or with oxygen. Nickel sulfide is converted to nickel oxide, basically they just roast it in a blast furnace with oxygen and sinter it into to nickel oxide.

Nickel oxides are can then be combined with carbon in a blast furnace (without oxygen) to form nickel metal. But that takes a HUGE amount of energy. Nickel has a very high melting point, and the high temperatures also wearout the furnaces quickly.

They also use other techniques like the Mond proecess, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mond_process. The problem is that the intermediate product (nickel carbonyl) is extremely carcinogenic (cancer causing). So extensive safety measures and equipment are essential. And this drives the cost even higher.

And of course nickel is toxic, and it burns, and if it converts to its hexavalent state (+6) it becomes carcinogenic again.

All that bad stuff aside, nickel is a very important industrial compound. Without nickel the world would be in a very bad place: no stainless steel, no magnets, no chrome plating, no nickel hydride batteries, nickel is used as a catalyst for many industrial reactions.