Shopping on line can be easy, simple and save you lots of money. It can also take a lot of your time, frustrate you, and result in unwanted purchases. Now the same can be said for regular high street shopping, but with the vast opportunity presented by the Internet it will pay you to spend a few minutes reading this and understanding how to better optimize your Tin shopping experience:
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3. Testimonials - don't know anybody that has bought a Tin? Wrong! If the Tin is good the internet will let you know. Use the Internet as a friend and get testimonials before you buy.
4. Questions - Got a question about Tin then search the Forums, FAQ's, Blogs etc. Don't be afraid to ask .....
5. Reputation - Never heard of the company selling Tin? Don't worry, no reason why you should know every company in the world, but you know someone that does! Use the internet to find out what people are saying about Tin and build up a picture of their reputation for sales, returns, customer service, delivery etc.
6. Returns - still worried that even after all of the above your Tin wont be what you want? Check out the returns policy. There is so much competition now that someone, somewhere is bound to offer the terms that you are comfortable with.
7. Feedback - happy with your Tin then let people know, after all you are depending on others people input in your buying decision, so why not give a little back.
8. Security - check for the yellow padlock on the Tin site before you buy, and the s after http:/ /i.e. https:// = a secure site
9. Contact - got a question about Tin, or want to leave a comment then check out the sites contact page. Reputable companies have them and respond.
10. Payment - ready to pay for your Tin, then use your credit card or PayPal! Be aware of companies that don't accept them, there may be genuine reasons but given the huge amount of choice you have when buying online there is no reason at all not to buy via credit card or PayPal.
{{Elementbox_isotopes_decay | mn=126 | sym=Sn| na=[synthetic radioisotope | hl=~1 E5 [year
| dm=[beta emission | de=0.380 | pn=126 | ps=[antimony -->
Alchemical symbol for tin
Tin is a chemical element in the periodic table that has the symbol
Sn () and atomic number 50. This silvery, malleable poor metal that is not easily
oxidation in air and resists
corrosion is found in many alloys and is used to coat other metals to prevent corrosion. Tin is obtained chiefly from the mineral cassiterite, where it occurs as an
oxide. It can be
alloyed with
copper to make
bronze.
Notable characteristics
Tin is a malleable, ductile, highly crystalline, silvery-white metal; when a bar of tin is bent, a strange crackling sound known as the "tin cry" can be heard due to the breaking of the crystals. 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.Tin forms the dioxide SnO2 when it is heated in the presence of
air. SnO2, in turn, is feebly acidic and forms stannate (SnO3-2) salts with
basic oxides. Tin can be highly polished and is used as a protective coat for other metals in order to prevent corrosion or other chemical action. This metal combines directly with
chlorine and oxygen and displaces hydrogen from dilute acids. Tin is malleable at ordinary temperatures but is brittle when it is heated.
Allotropes
Tin's chemical properties fall between those of metals and non-metals, just as the semiconductors silicon and germanium do. Tin has two
allotropes at normal pressure and temperature: gray tin and white tin.
Below 13.2 °
Celsius, it exists as
gray or alpha tin, which has a cubic crystal structure similar to silicon and
germanium. Gray tin has no metallic properties at all, is a dull-gray powdery material, and has few uses, other than a few specialized semiconductor applications.
When warmed above 13.2 °C tin changes into
white or beta tin, which is metallic and has a tetragonal structure. Converting gray tin powder into white tin produces white tin powder. To convert powdery gray tin into solid white tin the temperature must be raised above the melting point of tin.
Gray tin can cause undesirable effects in applications where the metallic properties of tin are important, since metallic
white tin will slowly convert to gray tin if it is held for a long time below 13.2 °Celsius. The metallic surface of white tin becomes covered with a gray powder which is easily rubbed off. The gray patches slowly expand until all of the tin in the object is converted from the metal to the powder, at which point it loses its structural integrity and may fall to pieces. This process is known as
tin disease or
tin pest. Tin pest was a particular problem in northern Europe in the 18th century as organ pipes made of tin would sometimes completely disintegrate during long cold winters. Some sources also say that during
Napoleon's Russian campaign of 1812, the temperatures became so cold that the tin buttons on the soldiers' uniforms disintegrated, contributing to the defeat of the Grande Armée. However, the veracity of this story is debatable, because Napoleon would likely have foreseen this problem, and the transformation to gray tin often takes a reasonably long time.Le Coureur, Penny, and Jay Burreson.
Napoleon's Buttons: 17 Molecules that Changed History. New York: Penguin Group USA, 2004. This transformation, however, may be prevented by the addition of
antimony or bismuth.
Applications
Tin bonds readily to iron, and has been used for coating
lead or zinc and steel to prevent corrosion. Tin-plated
steel containers are widely used for food preservation, and this forms a large part of the market for metallic tin. Speakers of British English call them "tins"; Americans call them "canning" or "tin cans". One thus-derived use of the slang term "
tinnie" or "tinny" means "can of beer". The
tin whistle is so called because it was first mass-produced in tin-plated steel.
Other uses:
- Some important tin alloys are bronze, bell metal, Babbitt metal, die casting alloy, pewter, phosphor bronze, soft solder, and White metal.
- The most important salt formed is tin(II) chloride, which has found use as a reducing agent and as a mordant in the calico printing process. Electrically conductive coatings are produced when tin salts are sprayed onto glass. These coatings have been used in panel lighting and in the production of frost-free windshields.
- Most metal pipes in a pipe organ are made of varying amounts of a tin/lead alloy, with 50%/50% being the most common. The amount of tin in the pipe defines the pipe's tone, since tin is the most tonally resonant of all metals. When a tin/lead alloy cools, the lead cools slightly faster and makes a mottled or spotted effect. This metal alloy is referred to as spotted metal.
- Window glass is most often made via floating molten glass on top of molten tin (creating float glass) in order to make a flat surface (this is called the "Pilkington process").
- Tin is also used in solders for joining plumbings or electric circuits, in bearing (mechanical) alloys, in glass-making, and in a wide range of tin chemical applications. Although of higher melting point than a lead-tin alloy, the use of pure tin or tin alloyed with other metals in these applications is rapidly supplanting the use of the previously common lead–containing alloys in order to eliminate the problems of toxicity caused by lead.
- Tin foil was once a common wrapping material for foods and drugs; replaced in the early 20th century by the use of aluminium foil, which is now commonly referred to as tin foil. Hence one use of the slang term "tinnie" or "tinny" for a small retail package of a drug such as cannabis (drug) or for a can of beer.
Tin becomes a superconductor below 3.72 kelvin. In fact, tin was one of the first superconductors to be studied; the
Meissner effect, one of the characteristic features of superconductors, was first discovered in superconducting tin crystals. The niobium-tin compound Niobium-tin is commercially used as wires for
superconducting magnets, due to the material's high critical temperature#In Superconductivity (18 K) and critical magnetic field (25
Tesla (unit)). A superconducting magnet weighing only a couple of
kilograms is capable of producing magnetic fields comparable to a conventional electromagnet weighing tons.
History
Tin (Old English:
tin, Old Latin:
plumbum candidum ("white lead"),
Old German:
tsin,
Late Latin:
stannum) 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 tin-mining) 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.
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 language 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.
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
aluminum foil,
beverage cans, corrugated building sheathing and tin cans, are actually made of
steel or aluminum, 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.
Occurrence
In 2005, China was the largest producer of tin, with at least one-third of the world's share, closely followed by
Indonesia and South America, reports the
British Geological Survey.
Tin is produced by reducing the ore with
coal in a
reverberatory furnace. This metal is a relatively scarce element with an abundance in the
Earth's crust (geology) of about 2 part per million, compared with 94 ppm for zinc, 63 ppm for copper, and 12 ppm for lead. Most of the world's tin is produced from placer mining deposits. The only mineral of commercial importance as a source of tin is
cassiterite (Sn
oxygen2), although small quantities of tin are recovered from complex
sulfides such as stannite,
cylindrite, franckeite, canfieldite, and teallite. Secondary, or scrap, tin is also an important source of the metal.
Tasmania hosts some deposits of historical importance, most notably Mount Bischoff and Renison Bell.
see also :Category:Tin minerals
Isotopes
Tin is the element with the greatest number of stable isotopes (ten), which is probably related to the fact that 50 is a "Magic number (physics)" of protons. 28 additional unstable isotopes are known, including the "Magic number (physics)#Doubly magic" tin-100 (100Sn) (discovered in 1994).
Compounds
For discussion of Stannate compounds (SnO32-) see Stannate. For Stannite (SnO2-) see
Stannite. See also
Stannous hydroxide (Sn(OH)2),
Stannic acid (Stannic Hydroxide - Sn(OH)4),Tin dioxide (Stannic Oxide - SnO2),
Tin(II) oxide (Stannous Oxide - SnO),
Tin(II) chloride (SnCl2),Tin(IV) chloride (SnCl4)
see also :category:Tin compounds
Biologic effects
Elemental tin is an
essential nutrient, needed in very small amounts. The small amount of tin that is found in canned foods is not harmful to humans.
Certain organic tin compounds,
organotin, such as triorganotins (see tributyltin oxide) are toxic and are used as industrial
fungicides and bactericides.
See also
References
- Los Alamos National Laboratory: Tin
External links
- WebElements.com – Tin
- Theodore Gray's Wooden Periodic Table Table: Tin samples and castings
{{Elementbox_isotopes_decay | mn=126 | sym=Sn| na=[synthetic radioisotope | hl=~1 E5 [year
| dm=[beta emission | de=0.380 | pn=126 | ps=[antimony -->
Alchemical symbol for tin
Tin is a
chemical element in the
periodic table that has the symbol
Sn () and
atomic number 50. This silvery, malleable poor metal that is not easily
oxidation in air and resists corrosion is found in many
alloys and is used to coat other metals to prevent corrosion. Tin is obtained chiefly from the mineral cassiterite, where it occurs as an
oxide. It can be
alloyed with
copper to make bronze.
Notable characteristics
Tin is a malleable, ductile, highly
crystalline, silvery-white
metal; when a bar of tin is bent, a strange crackling sound known as the "tin cry" can be heard due to the breaking of the crystals. 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.Tin forms the dioxide SnO2 when it is heated in the presence of air. SnO2, in turn, is feebly acidic and forms stannate (SnO3-2) salts with basic oxides. Tin can be highly polished and is used as a protective coat for other metals in order to prevent corrosion or other chemical action. This metal combines directly with
chlorine and oxygen and displaces hydrogen from dilute acids. Tin is malleable at ordinary temperatures but is brittle when it is heated.
Allotropes
Tin's chemical properties fall between those of metals and non-metals, just as the semiconductors silicon and germanium do. Tin has two
allotropes at normal pressure and temperature: gray tin and white tin.
Below 13.2 °Celsius, it exists as
gray or alpha tin, which has a cubic crystal structure similar to silicon and germanium. Gray tin has no metallic properties at all, is a dull-gray powdery material, and has few uses, other than a few specialized
semiconductor applications.
When warmed above 13.2 °C tin changes into
white or beta tin, which is metallic and has a tetragonal structure. Converting gray tin powder into white tin produces white tin powder. To convert powdery gray tin into solid white tin the temperature must be raised above the melting point of tin.
Gray tin can cause undesirable effects in applications where the metallic properties of tin are important, since metallic
white tin will slowly convert to gray tin if it is held for a long time below 13.2 °Celsius. The metallic surface of white tin becomes covered with a gray powder which is easily rubbed off. The gray patches slowly expand until all of the tin in the object is converted from the metal to the powder, at which point it loses its structural integrity and may fall to pieces. This process is known as
tin disease or
tin pest. Tin pest was a particular problem in northern Europe in the 18th century as
organ pipes made of tin would sometimes completely disintegrate during long cold winters. Some sources also say that during Napoleon's Russian campaign of 1812, the temperatures became so cold that the tin buttons on the soldiers' uniforms disintegrated, contributing to the defeat of the Grande Armée. However, the veracity of this story is debatable, because Napoleon would likely have foreseen this problem, and the transformation to gray tin often takes a reasonably long time.Le Coureur, Penny, and Jay Burreson.
Napoleon's Buttons: 17 Molecules that Changed History. New York: Penguin Group USA, 2004. This transformation, however, may be prevented by the addition of antimony or bismuth.
Applications
Tin bonds readily to iron, and has been used for coating lead or zinc and
steel to prevent
corrosion. Tin-plated
steel containers are widely used for
food preservation, and this forms a large part of the market for metallic tin. Speakers of British English call them "tins"; Americans call them "canning" or "tin cans". One thus-derived use of the slang term "
tinnie" or "tinny" means "can of beer". The
tin whistle is so called because it was first mass-produced in tin-plated steel.
Other uses:
- Some important tin alloys are bronze, bell metal, Babbitt metal, die casting alloy, pewter, phosphor bronze, soft solder, and White metal.
- The most important salt formed is tin(II) chloride, which has found use as a reducing agent and as a mordant in the calico printing process. Electrically conductive coatings are produced when tin salts are sprayed onto glass. These coatings have been used in panel lighting and in the production of frost-free windshields.
- Most metal pipes in a pipe organ are made of varying amounts of a tin/lead alloy, with 50%/50% being the most common. The amount of tin in the pipe defines the pipe's tone, since tin is the most tonally resonant of all metals. When a tin/lead alloy cools, the lead cools slightly faster and makes a mottled or spotted effect. This metal alloy is referred to as spotted metal.
- Window glass is most often made via floating molten glass on top of molten tin (creating float glass) in order to make a flat surface (this is called the "Pilkington process").
- Tin is also used in solders for joining plumbings or electric circuits, in bearing (mechanical) alloys, in glass-making, and in a wide range of tin chemical applications. Although of higher melting point than a lead-tin alloy, the use of pure tin or tin alloyed with other metals in these applications is rapidly supplanting the use of the previously common lead–containing alloys in order to eliminate the problems of toxicity caused by lead.
- Tin foil was once a common wrapping material for foods and drugs; replaced in the early 20th century by the use of aluminium foil, which is now commonly referred to as tin foil. Hence one use of the slang term "tinnie" or "tinny" for a small retail package of a drug such as cannabis (drug) or for a can of beer.
Tin becomes a superconductor below 3.72
kelvin. In fact, tin was one of the first superconductors to be studied; the
Meissner effect, one of the characteristic features of superconductors, was first discovered in superconducting tin crystals. The
niobium-tin compound Niobium-tin is commercially used as wires for
superconducting magnets, due to the material's high
critical temperature#In Superconductivity (18 K) and critical magnetic field (25 Tesla (unit)). A superconducting magnet weighing only a couple of
kilograms is capable of producing magnetic fields comparable to a conventional electromagnet weighing tons.
History
Tin (
Old English:
tin, Old Latin:
plumbum candidum ("white lead"),
Old German:
tsin,
Late Latin:
stannum) 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 tin-mining) 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.
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 language 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.
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 aluminum foil, beverage cans, corrugated building sheathing and tin cans, are actually made of steel or aluminum, 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.
Occurrence
In 2005, China was the largest producer of tin, with at least one-third of the world's share, closely followed by
Indonesia and South America, reports the British Geological Survey.
Tin is produced by reducing the ore with coal in a
reverberatory furnace. This metal is a relatively scarce element with an abundance in the
Earth's
crust (geology) of about 2
part per million, compared with 94 ppm for zinc, 63 ppm for copper, and 12 ppm for lead. Most of the world's tin is produced from
placer mining deposits. The only mineral of commercial importance as a source of tin is cassiterite (Sn
oxygen2), although small quantities of tin are recovered from complex sulfides such as stannite, cylindrite, franckeite,
canfieldite, and teallite. Secondary, or scrap, tin is also an important source of the metal.
Tasmania hosts some deposits of historical importance, most notably Mount Bischoff and Renison Bell.
see also :Category:Tin minerals
Isotopes
Tin is the element with the greatest number of stable isotopes (ten), which is probably related to the fact that 50 is a "Magic number (physics)" of protons. 28 additional unstable isotopes are known, including the "
Magic number (physics)#Doubly magic" tin-100 (100Sn) (discovered in 1994).
Compounds
For discussion of Stannate compounds (SnO32-) see Stannate. For Stannite (SnO2-) see
Stannite. See also
Stannous hydroxide (Sn(OH)2),Stannic acid (Stannic Hydroxide - Sn(OH)4),
Tin dioxide (Stannic Oxide - SnO2),Tin(II) oxide (Stannous Oxide - SnO),
Tin(II) chloride (SnCl2),
Tin(IV) chloride (SnCl4)
see also :category:Tin compounds
Biologic effects
Elemental tin is an essential nutrient, needed in very small amounts. The small amount of tin that is found in canned foods is not harmful to humans.
Certain organic tin compounds,
organotin, such as triorganotins (see
tributyltin oxide) are toxic and are used as industrial fungicides and
bactericides.
See also
References
- Los Alamos National Laboratory: Tin
External links
- WebElements.com – Tin
- Theodore Gray's Wooden Periodic Table Table: Tin samples and castings
TIN Events Online - Home
The Improvement Network (TIN) will no longer be a provider of development events after the end of March 2008. Over the years, TIN has led the way in creativity and innovation ...
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TIN is for the NHS and its partner organisations, primarily within the East Midlands Health Area. It is for anyone, and everyone, with an interest in improving healthcare services ...
tin.org - TIN newsreader development headquarters
A threaded NNTP and spool-based UseNet newsreader for GNU/Linux, *BSD, various Unices, and the Hurd. Links to download sites, documentation and support mailing list. Open source ...
Tin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn (Latin: stannum) and atomic number 50. This silvery, malleable poor metal that is not easily oxidized in air and resists corrosion, is ...
Definition: tin from Online Medical Dictionary
The Online Medical Dictionary is a searchable dictionary of definitions from medicine, science and technology.
Food Standards Agency - Eat well, be well - Tin
Tin is a trace element found in fresh and tinned foods. The amount found in fresh food depends on how much tin there is in the soil where the food is grown.
Teddy In A Tin - Personalised Teddy, Personalised Teddies ...
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Tin
Welcome to the Tin hub page. In this useful section of the site you will find information relating to the LME's traded contract. For convenience, settlement prices, opening ...
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The Tin Angel and Taylor John's House, Coventry
The Tin Angel is an intimate live music venue in Coventry Taylor John's house is it's new bigger brother, continuing in the tradition of bring great music from around the world as ...
