Interesting Facts About Tin

Its Latin name ‘Stannum’ gave it the chemical symbol Sn. Proudly carrying 50 protons and 50 electrons, it has an atomic number of 50. We all know it as Tin! Tin is malleable and ductile which means it can be molded into wires and flattened to make sheets. This silvery gray metal has some interesting facts surrounding it. Lets take a look.

Interesting Facts About Tin

• Cassiterite serves as the source on tin. Reduction of cassiterite with burning coal gives the tin metal. In the ancient times, this chemical process of reduction possibly produced tin.
• Tin is highly crystalline in nature. A tin crystal is tetragonal in structure. A sound called ‘tin cry’ is heard on bending a bar of tin.
• At normal temperatures tin is malleable but acquires brittleness when cooled.
• Tin resists corrosion from water. But strong acids and alkalis corrode it. Tin bonds well with iron.
• It forms a dioxide when heated in air and a stennate salt is formed with basic oxides. With a solution containing oxygen, tin catalyses the reaction and accelerates it.
• Gray tin, white tin and brittle tin are allotropes of tin. Below 13.2 degrees Celsius, tin transforms into its allotrope called gray tin, which is powdery. Organ pipes in European cathedrals first showed this change in the form of a growth on them. It was believed that some devils caused the change. Microorganisms were also thought to cause it and it was known as the ‘tin disease’.
• The transformation of tin to gray tin is believed to have caused the disintegration of the buttons of soldiers’ uniforms during Napoleon’s Russian Campaign in 1812 due to the chilled weather then.
• Tin finds applications in coating lead or zinc to protect them from corrosion. Steel containers that are used for preserving food are often plated with tin.
• Tin directly combines with chlorine to form a famous salt called stannous chloride. Stannous chloride is used as a mordant and a reducing agent. Tin salts are sprayed on glass to produce electrically conductive coatings.
• Tin forms an alloy with lead. The alloy is called spotted metal. Lead cools a little earlier giving the surface a dappled effect. This phenomenon gave the alloy its name. Another important alloy of tin is the one with copper. It is bronze.
• In the earlier days, tin foils were used for wrapping foods. Today, aluminum foils have replaced tin foils.
• Below 3.72K, tin behaves as a superconductor. Meissner Effect that is commonly observed in superconductors was first discovered in tin crystals.
• Tin mining had begun in Europe during the classical era. The metal began to be used from 600 B.C. By 2007, the People’s Republic Of China became the largest producer of Tin. Peru and Indonesia were next in order in the list of Tin producers. Tasmania has some historically important deposits of tin like Mount Bischoff. Around 35 nations mine tin.

Now lets get into some facts about numbers related to tin.

• Tin’s heat of fusion and heat of vaporization are 7.03 and 296.1 kilojoules per mole respectively.
• Tin melts at 505.08K and boils at 2875K.
• Atomic mass of tin is 118.71 amu. It density is 7.31 g/cc.

Lastly, lets know the uses of tin.

• Tin is used to coat metals to prevent them from corrosion.
• Many alloys of tin find uses in various areas.
• Tin-niobium alloy has superconductivity. It is used in constructing superconductive magnets that generate high field strengths without consuming much power.
• Unalloyed tin is used as a lining material in distillation plants as it is chemically inert to pure water.
• To increase its hardness and tensile strength, it is alloyed with copper and antimony and used as a bearing material.
• Tin and tin chemicals are largely used in electroplating.
• Tin is used in the manufacture of tin-plate, which is a steel sheet coated with tin. This contributes to 40% of tin consumption of the world.

At school, when I learned about periodicity in Chemistry, there were so many elements to study that I got no time to ponder over tin. So this was when I spent some ‘Tin-Time’ to explore the ‘tin-area’ of Chemistry and bring up for you some interesting facts about tin.