tin

tin (Sn), a chemical element belonging to the carbon family, Group 14 (IVa) of the periodic table. It is a soft, silvery white metal with a bluish tinge, known to the ancients in bronze, an alloy with copper. Tin is widely used for plating steel cans used as food containers, in metals used for bearings, and in solder.

The origins of tin are lost in antiquity. Bronzes, which are copper–tin alloys, were used by humans in prehistory long before pure tin metal itself was isolated. Bronzes were common in early Mesopotamia, the Indus valley, Egypt, Crete, Israel, and Peru. Much of the tin used by the early Mediterranean peoples apparently came from the Scilly Isles and Cornwall in the British Isles, where tin mining dates to at least 300–200 bce. Tin mines were operating in both the Inca and Aztec domains of South and Central America before the Spanish conquest. The symbol Sn for tin is an abbreviation of the Latin word for tin, stannum.

Britannica Quiz

Facts You Should Know: The Periodic Table Quiz

Occurrence and distribution

The element is present in the igneous rocks of Earth’s crust to the extent of about 0.001 percent, which is scarce but not rare; its abundance is of the same order of magnitude as such technically useful elements as cobalt, nickel, copper, cerium, and lead, and it is essentially equal to the abundance of nitrogen. In the cosmos there are 1.33 atoms of tin per 1 × 10⁶ atoms of silicon, an abundance roughly equal to that of niobium, ruthenium, neodymium, or platinum. Cosmically, tin is a product of neutron absorption. Its richness in stable isotopes is noteworthy.

Tin occurs in grains of the native metal but chiefly as stannic oxide, SnO₂, in the mineral cassiterite, the only tin mineral of commercial significance. The metal is obtained from cassiterite by reduction (removal of the oxygen) with coal or coke in smelting furnaces. No high-grade deposits are known. The major sources are alluvial deposits, averaging about 0.01 percent tin. The oldest tin mines were those in Cornwall, which were worked at least as early as Phoenician times but are no longer of major consequence, and Spain. Lode deposits, containing up to 4 percent, are found in Bolivia and Cornwall. China led the world in tin production in the early 21st century, accounting for nearly half of all production; Indonesia, Peru, and Bolivia were also top producers. Several processes have been devised for reclaiming the metal from scrap tin or tin-plated articles. (For a full treatment of tin mining, refining, and recovery, see tin processing.)

Properties of the element

Tin is nontoxic, ductile, malleable, and adapted to all kinds of cold-working, such as rolling, spinning, and extrusion. The colour of pure tin is retained during exposure because a thin, invisible, protective film of stannic oxide is formed spontaneously by reaction with the oxygen of the air. The low melting point of tin and its firm adhesion to clean surfaces of iron, steel, copper, and copper alloys facilitate its use as an oxidation-resistant coating material. Tin exists in two different forms, or allotropes: the familiar form, white (or beta) tin, and gray (or alpha) tin, which is powdery and of little use. The gray form changes to the white above 13.2 °C (55.8 °F), rapidly at temperatures above 100 °C (212 °F); the reverse transformation, called tin pest, occurs at low temperatures and seriously hampers the use of the metal in very cold regions. This change is rapid only below −50 °C (−58 °F), unless catalyzed by gray tin or tin in the +4 oxidation state, but is prevented by small amounts of antimony, bismuth, copper, lead, silver, or gold normally present in commercial grades of tin.

White tin has a body-centred tetragonal crystal structure, and gray tin has a face-centred cubic structure. When bent, tin makes an eerie, crackling “cry” as its crystals crush each other. Tin is attacked by strong acids and alkalies, but nearly neutral solutions do not affect it appreciably. Chlorine, bromine, and iodine react with tin, but fluorine reacts with it only slowly at room temperature. The relationships among the allotropic modifications of tin can be represented as transformations from one crystal type to another at specific temperatures:

(The double arrows signify that the transformation occurs in both directions, as tin is heated or as it is cooled.)

Tin exists in two oxidation states, +4 and +2. Elemental tin is readily oxidized to the dipositive ion in acidic solution, but this Sn²⁺ ion is converted to the Sn⁴⁺ ion by many mild oxidizing agents, including elemental oxygen. Oxidation under alkaline conditions normally gives the tetrapositive (Sn⁴⁺) state. In an alkaline medium, dipositive tin (Sn²⁺) disproportionates readily to tetrapositive tin and the free element.

Tin has 10 stable isotopes, occurring in the following percentages in natural tin: tin-112, 0.97; tin-114, 0.65; tin-115, 0.36; tin-116, 14.53; tin-117, 7.68; tin-118, 24.22; tin-119, 8.58; tin-120, 32.59; tin-122, 4.63; and tin-124, 5.79.

Uses

Tin-plating of iron protects the latter from corrosion; tin piping and valves maintain purity in water and beverages; molten tin is the base for (float) plate-glass production. Because pure tin is relatively weak, it is not put to structural uses unless alloyed with other metals in such materials as bronzes, pewter, bearing metals, type metals, lead-based solders, bell metal, babbitt metal, and low-temperature casting alloys. Tin oxide, in which tin is in the +4 oxidation state, is useful in making ceramic bodies opaque, as a mild abrasive, and as a weighting agent for fabrics. Tin fluoride and tin pyrophosphate, in which tin is in the +2 oxidation state, are used in dentifrices. Organic tin compounds act as stabilizers in certain plastics and as wood preservatives. A crystalline alloy with niobium is a superconductor at temperatures as high as 18 K (−427 °F) and retains this property in very strong magnetic fields.

Elemental tin is apparently nontoxic, and quantities of tin up to 300 parts per million, as dissolved by foods packaged in tin-plated containers and cooking utensils, are not harmful. Organic tin compounds commonly used as biocides and fungicides are, however, toxic to human beings.

Compounds

Tin forms two series of compounds: stannous, in which tin is in the +2 oxidation state, and stannic, in which it is in the +4 state. Some of the more commercially important stannous compounds are stannous chloride, SnCl₂, used in tin galvanizing and as a reducing agent in the manufacture of polymers and dyes; stannous oxide, SnO, employed in making tin salts for chemical reagents and for plating; and stannous fluoride, SnF₂, an active ingredient in toothpastes. Stannic compounds of significance include stannic chloride, SnCl₄, widely used as a stabilizer for perfumes and as a starting material for other tin salts; and stannic oxide, SnO₂, a useful catalyst in certain industrial processes and a polishing powder for steel.

Tin can form a bond with carbon, as in the more than 500 known organotin compounds. Organotin stabilizers are used to prevent changes in polyvinyl chloride upon exposure to light and heat. A number of organotin compounds are major ingredients in biocides and fungicides.