Nonferrous metals [Metallurgy]non-ferrous metal, narrow sense of nonferrous metals also known as non-ferrous metals, is a general term for all metals other than iron, manganese, and chromium. The broad definition of non-ferrous metals also includes non-ferrous alloys.

A non-ferrous alloy is an alloy composed of a non-ferrous metal as a matrix (usually greater than 50%), adding one or several other elements. Non-ferrous metals usually refer to all metals except iron (and sometimes manganese and chromium) and iron-based alloys. Non-ferrous metals can be divided into heavy metals (such as copper, lead, zinc), light metals (such as aluminum, magnesium), precious metals (such as gold, silver, platinum) and rare metals (such as tungsten, molybdenum, germanium, lithium, lanthanum, uranium).