 Discovery Information
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| Who: Known to the ancients. Tin is one of the earliest metals known and was used as a component of bronze from antiquity. Because
of its hardening effect on copper, tin was used in bronze implements as early as 3,500 BC. Tin mining is believed to have started in Cornwall and Devon (esp.
Dartmoor), England, in Classical times, and a thriving tin trade developed with the civilizations of the Mediterranean.
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| Name Origin
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| Symbol Sn from Latin: stannum (tin). |
| "Tin" in different languages. |
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| Sources
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| Principally found in the ore cassiterite (SnO2) and stannine (Cu2FeSnS4) in Malaysia and Indonesia, Zaire and Nigeria, Bolivia and Thailand. 35 countries throughout the world mine tin. The pure metal is formed by reduction with coal.
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| Annual production is around 165 thousand tons. |
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| Abundance
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| Universe: 0.004 ppm (by weight) |
| Sun: 0.009 ppm (by weight) |
| Carbonaceous meteorite: 1.2 ppm |
| Earth's Crust: 2.2 ppm |
| Seawater: |
| Atlantic surface: 2.3 x 10-6 ppm
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| Atlantic deep: 5.8 x 10-6 ppm
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| Pacific surface: n/a ppm |
| Pacific deep: n/a ppm |
| Human: |
| 200 ppb by weight |
| 11 ppb by atoms |
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| Uses
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| Used as a coating for steel cans. Also in solder (33%Sn:67%Pb), bronze (20%Sn:80%Cu), and pewter. Stannous fluoride (SnF5), a compound of tin and fluorine is used in some toothpaste. It is also used in the manufacture of super conducting magnets. While tin has many uses in alloys, it has few uses in it's pure elemental form.
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| Tin foil was once a common wrapping material for foods and drugs; now replaced by the use of aluminium foil, which is commonly referred to as tin foil.
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| In 2006, the categories of tin use were solder (52%), tinplate (16%), chemicals (13%), brass and bronze (5.5%), glass (2%),
and variety of other applications (11%).
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| History
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| Tin is one of the earliest metals known and was used as a component of bronze from antiquity. Because of its hardening effect
on copper, tin was used in bronze implements as early as 3,500 BC. Tin mining is believed to have started in Cornwall and Devon (esp.
Dartmoor) in Classical times, and a thriving tin trade developed with the civilizations of the Mediterranean. However the
lone metal was not used until about 600 BC. The last Cornish Tin Mine, at South Crofty near Camborne closed in 1998 bringing
4,000 years of mining in Cornwall to an end.
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| The word "tin" has cognates in many Germanic and Celtic languages. The American Heritage Dictionary speculates that the word
was borrowed from a pre-Indo-European language. The later name "stannum" and its Romance derivatures come from the lead-silver
alloy of the same name for the finding of the latter in ores; the former "stagnum" was the word for a stale pool or puddle.
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| In modern times, the word "tin" is often improperly used as a generic phrase for any silvery metal that comes in sheets. Most
everyday materials that are commonly called "tin", such as aluminium foil, beverage cans, corrugated building sheathing and tin cans, are actually made of steel or aluminium, although tin cans (tinned cans) do contain a thin coating of tin to inhibit rust. Likewise, so-called "tin toys" are usually
made of steel, and may or may not have a coating of tin to inhibit rust.
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| Notes
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| Tin becomes a superconductor below 3.72K. Tin was one of the first superconductors to be studied. |
| This metal resists corrosion from distilled, sea and soft tap water, but can be attacked by strong acids, alkalis, and by acid salts. Tin acts as a catalyst when oxygen is in solution and helps accelerate chemical attack.
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| Tin is the element with the greatest number of stable isotopes (ten). 18 additional unstable isotopes are known.
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| Hazards
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| The small amount of tin that is found in canned foods is not harmful to humans. Certain organic tin compounds, such as triorganotins are toxic and are used as industrial fungicides and bactericides.
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| Tin powder is highly flammable, it can in powder form lead to dust explosions. |
