Talk:Tin/Archive 1

Untitled
Article changed over to new WikiProject Elements format by maveric149. Elementbox converted 15:30, 5 July 2005 by Femto (previous revision was that of 07:46, 10 June 2005).

Information Sources
Some of the text in this entry was rewritten from Los Alamos National Laboratory - Tin. Additional text was taken directly from USGS Tin Statistics and Information, the Elements database 20001107 (via dict.org), Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) (via dict.org) and WordNet (r) 1.7 (via dict.org). Data for the table was obtained from the sources listed on the main page and WikiProject Elements but was reformatted and converted into SI units. --

Talk
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All of the 'poor metals' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periodic_table/Standard_Table in grey are refered to as 'true metals' in each of the articles. I think this is an error.

User:ShaunMacPherson

It seems that tin has the interesting property that when it's cold for a long period of time, it corrodes into "grey tin." Someone who knows more about this might want to mention it.

http://www.luminet.net/~wenonah/hydro/sn.htm

http://www.physics.uoguelph.ca/summer/scor/articles/scor40.htm

Cchiappa 15:48, 13 July 2005 (UTC) The tin alloys.......

Corrode is perhaps the wrong term to use, but it does under go a change. This "corrosion" is simmilar to ice melting from ice to water, it is totally temperature/pressure dependant and is related to phase transitions. Don't have time to add this in but it could be a very interesting addition as it has historically caused trouble for Siberian invaders (Tin cans of food became unusable). See the section on allotropes.-Darkwraith 21:30, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Isotopes
The Isotope section is very lacking. Other than it being an interesting fact it should be removed unless other facts about uses or studies can be added.-Darkwraith 21:30, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Tin foil
Does anyone know about what year Tin (not aluminum) foil stopped being sold in stores? Joeylawn 21:14, 8 February 2006 (UTC) For special purpose it still is available at providers of laboratory or dental products (if you do not care about the price). It is used for capacitors, roquefort cheese and body electrodes as well. --217.6.249.186 10:30, 13 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree that stating the date as 1910 seems too specific. I doubt there was a precise date; it probably declined in popularity as aluminum declined in price. Perhaps the article should be changed. --71.227.190.111 02:40, 14 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Not necessarily. You push the tin-foil producers out of the market until there is only one left, and then he decides to go out of the retail business, then - there's a cut-off date for the last order to be filled for retail outlets (as is obvious, it's still available for special applications, as above - so *someone* is producing it).
 * ~ender 2011-07-27 18:32:PM MST

Etymology
"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."

From ancient times, the best-known metals have been associated with celestial bodies and metals and celestial bodies in turn with gods. The Greeks and Romans associated gold with the Sun and Apollo; mercury (quicksilver) with the planet and god Mercury (Hermes); copper with the planet and goddess Venus (Aphrodite); silver with Earth's Moon and Diana (Artemis); iron with the planet and god Mars (Ares); lead with the planet and god Saturn (Chronos). Tin was associated with the planet and god Jupiter (Zeus).

The Etruscans of central and north Italy, former rulers of Rome, were important intermediaries between the Greeks and the Romans - for instance, definitely in the transmission of the alphabet - and in general shared central elements of both cultures. Their trading network, in metals and other commodities such as amber, reached Central and Northern Europe: for instance, the proto-Germanic Runes (runic alphabet), are possibly of north-Etruscan ("Alpine") derivation.

In the Wikipedia article on Iron, a derivation of its Germanic proto-form from Etruscan "aisar" is suggested. A much more obvious Etruscanism in Germanic had already occurred to me, that of "tin" (German Zinn, where t > [ts] written "z" is a later development) from the well-known Etruscan name of Zeus/Jupiter, "Tinia".


 * Please cite sources for the ancient trans-European tin trade? I'd be particularly interested in studies of the earliest tin trade, c2300BC or earlier, between Cornwall / Devon and the Mediterranean: what routes were taken, what transport means were used -- it is difficult for me to imagine a primitive seafaring route, and a land route would seem to have been simply too long -- there must have been closer and cheaper tin sources. Also, what actual archaeological evidence exists for such a trade: surmise maybe, and artifacts, but has anyone really established the existence of trade in the raw material? I've added a "citation needed" template in the article: seems to me there might be some controversy over this, and that substantiation would be needed.


 * --Kessler 16:37, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't the information in Smelting be incorporated here.
I am a bit surprised to note that the article on Smelting seems to have a lot about the history of tin that isn't covered in this article about the element itself. Surely that is backwards. -- Cimon Avaro; on a pogostick. (talk) 13:15, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Precautions of tin
I have been reading through other elements' sites and have noticed that many contain precaustions about the element. Can we get a section in that warns about its health affects (if there are any)? Wii Wiki (talk) 14:59, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Pictures
I am doing a major expansion of this article, particularly to the production part (which I separated from "occurrence". I was inspired by a recent article I read about mining in Congo-Kinshasa

i can't figure out how to show the property info of the image of the pie chart i uploaded in "Applications". Could someone tell me whether that is changed to "public domain" and if not, what I have to do in order to get that done?

NittyG (talk) 09:51, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Reference
--Stone (talk) 22:48, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Production, Industry, etc
As you can see, I expanded this article quite a bit. I got inspired by an article I read in the New York times a week ago, and was a bit disappointed in the lack of information wikipedia had on the big picture as far as the tin industry.

I feel wikipedia is behind when describing markets in general. I think that every industry should have the following information, standardized: size of market, market history, largest producers (for each major part of the supply chain, in this case for now, mining and smelting). Is there any way we can have prices automated daily, with charts at regular intervals? Does wikipedia do any kind of live update information? I don't know if that's against some ethics... Nonetheless, that would go a long way. Imagine if people went to wikipedia as their first source of market information for anything. That would also make wikipedia far more valuable in the financial and business realm as much as the social and intellectual realm. Anyone with some early thought on this? I would love to help form a group around a Wikiproject:Markets thing. I would love to be a part of mining and financial markets projects among others. NittyG (talk) 03:46, 24 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree that chemical articles on Wikipedia are usually lacking market information. I think a reason is that most of the people who write these articles are chemists and don't know or don't care about such things. So, your contributions are very welcome. However, I have a feeling that your suggestion regarding live updates may be a bit outside the scope of Wikipedia. See WP:NOT for some examples of what Wikipedia is not. While there is no entry in that page specifically forbidding live prices, I think it is within the general spirit of not being a news site, directory, sales catalog, and repository of raw statistics. I would say that our goal as an encyclopedia is to try to focus on facts that don't change very rapidly and that don't lose relevance quickly. So, while I think that it is a very good idea to include a plot of how the tin prices have vary throughout the years (which would only need to be updated once a year), showing how the price has fluctuated in the last 24 hours could be pushing it. --Itub (talk) 11:37, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

expansions
There is still a lot of work to be done with what I put up. It doesn't correspond with what other people have, and needs to be consistent, as Stone pointed out to me (USGS vs ITRI, etc). Also, there are some subjects I want to include, such as:
 * details about the mining and smelting process, if it is any different and how it is a variation of the normal mining and smelting processes
 * expand environmental and health problems a little
 * alloys, chemicals, coatings, etc, in this and related attached articles, all here, under "tin facts": http://www.itri.co.uk/bfora/systems/xmlviewer/default.asp?arg=DS_ITRI_TECHART_25/_firsttitle.xsl/21
 * illegal mining in Indonesia, Congo-Kinshasa, how it affects markets
 * how metals exhanges work a little, and the additional commodity exchanges
 * secondary production of tin - economic feasibility, production
 * general cleanup, etc

NittyG (talk) 03:46, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Isotopes
The last sentence in the isotopes section seems to be a bit out of place; this section talks about isotopes, then suddenly ends with a fact on the color of one of tin's allotropes. Is this intentional?--Paraballo (talk) 05:11, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Factual error - Metallo Chimique does not mine tin!
The text and table are wrong when they cite Metallo Chimique as a 'tin mining' company. Metallo Chimique is a smelter that operates 100% from non-mined sources (colloquially, scrap, or otherwise, 'secondary metal'). Of course, it is still a very considerable producer of high-purity refined tin, but this isn't the same thing as being a mining company.

Ten Largest Tin Mining Companies (production, tons)[30] Company  2006   2007   %Change Yunnan Tin (China) 52,339 61,129 16.7 PT Timah (Indonesia) 44,689 58,325 30.5 Minsur (Peru) 40,977 35,940 -12.3 Malay (China) 52,339 61,129 16.7 Malaysia Smelting Corp (Malaysia) 22,850 25,471 11.5 Thaisarco (Thailand) 27,828 19,826 -28.8 Yunnan Chengfeng (China) 21,765 18,000 -17.3 Liuzhou China Tin (China) 13,499 13,193 -2.3 EM Vinto (Bolivia) 11,804 9,448 -20.0 Metallo Chimique (Belgium) 8,049 8,342 4.0 Gold Bell Group (China) 4,696 8,000 70.4


 * Astral highway (talk) 15:24, 1 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Per my note above, I have now removed the reference to Metallo Chimique in this table ont the grounds of factual inaccuracy.

Metallo-Chimique is the largest European producer of tin from secondary (scrap) sources. It does not mine tin whatsoever.Astral Highway (talk) 16:27, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Cost per what?
The cost is listed in dollars, but should be dollars per something, probably ton. But metric or US ton? Ccrrccrr (talk) 04:06, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
 * It is not yet clear to me what are the distinction being made. I believe it's metric tons, in which case I don't know what the best way to mark that would be - tons/metric tons/tonnes - all three are used interchangeably. For now I just replaced with "tons". NittyG (talk) 17:58, 2 December 2008 (UTC)


 * These cost things we've tried to keep out of element articles, since it's info so heavily dependent on market, demand, supplier, quantity, and purity. All over the map. Changing over time as it does, it's barely worth the keeping up. Very general statements are better. Is the stuff more expensive than gold, or priced more like copper? S  B Harris 13:32, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Temperature of tin phase transition
Am I reading right? 13.2C is 55.76 degrees F. That can't be right. Even if it's minus 13.2C, that's barely over 8 degrees F. More believable but not crazy cold.69.122.62.231 (talk) 22:21, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

In some sources the alpha-beta (gray-white) phase transition temperature is given as 18 ºC (291 K), not 13 ºC. Also, the third solid phase (gamma, or brittle (?) tin) is only observed for very high pressures, not at atmospheric pressure (see D. A. Young, Phase Diagrams of the Elements, UC Press, Berkely, 1991).193.136.128.7 (talk) 11:06, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

I have fixed those issues in the main text as follows: In pure tin, alpha - beta transition occurs at 13.2 C, but common tin is impure and its transition occurs at much lower temperatures. Indeed, gamma and sigma phases only exist at high pressures (many GPa).NIMSoffice (talk) 06:57, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Tables
Which of the tables are useless and should be moved to a separate page? Nergaal (talk) 19:02, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

History
I note that there is a request for a citation in the History section of the article. This is partly supplied by the link to the WP article Cassiterides. It would be good to have more history, for instance reference to smelting by the Blowing House method. Vernon White 18:28, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Also on the History page, it the picture obscures part of the first line of text. I'd fix it if I knew how. 12.40.5.69 19:07, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I've re-written the history section, any input would be appreciated. Lboscher (talk) 17:19, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Ancient History
As suggested, I'm creating a new section about the recent changes I've done to the history section. It seemed to me to be in disarray and I've completely re-written it so that it is a bit more relevant and concise. Please, any input would be greatly appreciated. Lboscher (talk) 22:37, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Boiling temperature disagreements
I am reading different values for the boiling temperature of tin from different sources and I am wondering which is right?

In this page we have 2875 K, 2602 °C. What is the source for this value?

The Chemical Elements website states 2543.15 K 2270.0 °C which corresponds to the value in my Penguin Dictionary of Chemistry book published in 1990. On the other hand, another text book "Chemistry, Molecules, Matter and Change" states the boiling point of Tin is 2720 °C. Come on people, the published values are all over the place with the boiling point of tin! There can only really be one right answer!

Peter Dow (talk) 19:33, 9 November 2010 (UTC)


 * See my reply at talk:Gallium. The entries on wikipedia are from reliable academic texts. The world renowned CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics for example. Polyamorph (talk) 21:13, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

The discussion at talk:Gallium seems to have revealed that the CRC handbook tabulated values for the boiling points have changed significantly between editions (for gallium, sometime between the 66th edition in 1985 and the 84th in 2003). It is possible that the value for the boiling point of tin has changed between editions as well. This could similarly be revealed here if those with access to a particular edition quote the value listed there and the edition number.

Some people are relying on one table of values from one edition of one academic text and others are relying on another table of values, perhaps from another edition of the same academic text or from another academic text. I am not relying one particular table or textbook until I understand why one table or one textbook is more reliable than the other.

Peter Dow (talk) 23:45, 11 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I've got a similar question - as to the melting point, and what the official number is?
 * Plugged my data point into the article awhile back, but I'm still lacking an understanding as to why there are two different melting points.
 * It's been suggested to me that perhaps different allotropes are being used? I guess I'd need to write the author of the study.
 * So, I'd like to see physical state info on each allotrope in the article.
 * ~ender 2011-07-27 13:42:PM MST — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.222.244.123 (talk)

Biochemistry and biotoxicity information is very lacking
Someone really needs to write something in depth about tin toxicity. The article claims tin itself is not toxic. THats contrary to my dr's toxocology report which has tin listed as one of several toxic elements that are checked for in a hair toxicology test. The stub of information this article links to about it really should be MERGED into THIS main article-its copied and pasted below(if its even accurate to begin with): —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gawdsmak (talk • contribs) 04:15, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I looked into the toxicity issues with tin in Ullmann's encyclopedia, which tends to be exhaustive and slightly touchy about toxicity. You'll be relieved to know that tin or its inorganic compounds are nontoxic.  Certain organotin compounds are however very toxic, but they are rarely encountered in everyday life.--Smokefoot (talk) 14:58, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Scarcity
Since 50 is a "magic number", and there are 10 stable isotopes of tin (more than any other element!) why is tin such a scarce element, as this article states? Apparently, there is 12 times as much lead as tin in the earth's crust, which is quite surprising. Does it also have a low cosmic abundance, or is that just an Earth-specific phenomenon?

See tellurium for an example of an element that is common in the universe but rare on Earth; in that case it was due to the formation of TeH2 vapors that left the atmosphere early on. Tin does not do anything like this, but maybe there's another reason why it's rare in the Earth's crust. Perhaps most of it sank down into the mantle and the core, perhaps, and for some reason the lead stayed at the surface? An explanation would be nice...

Stonemason89 (talk) 15:23, 9 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Lead is 5 to 7 times as common as tin in the crust, but this is not such a big difference, considering the wide variations of element abundance, and the fact that we haven't surveyed the mantle. It may be that more volitile lead compounds somehow got moved into the crust. Lead's 82 is magic also--it's pretty common: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_the_chemical_elements. The real question for me is not why so much lead and tin (they are both common) but why so much barium? Again it's probably a crust solubility thing. See the graph of abundances for a good logarithmic look at abundance vs. Z, in the Wiki on abundances referenced. S  B Harris 04:34, 30 November 2008 (UTC). The abundant of lead is more common than tin one because most of lead in earth's crust is product of deacy chain of Thorium-232 (create lead-208), Uranium-238 (create Lead-206) and Uranium-235 (create lead-207), this is a not a unique cases in period table Bromine (Z=35) is 10 times less abundant than Iodine (Z=53) despite Bromine is a lighter elementCristiano Toàn (talk) 10:11, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Types of Tin?
grey tin (alpha-tin) white tin (beta tin) rhombic tin (gamma) But I only see pictures of two, which have different names? Confusion Reigns! ~ender 2011-07-27 13:37:PM MST
 * It is quite evident that one is gray (alpha) and other is white (silvery, beta) as labeled. The third one is uncommon. Materialscientist (talk) 22:41, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
 * So is it 'white tin' (as sources seem to think the common name is), or 'silver tin' (as it's labeled in the article)?
 * If it is silver tin, is the nomenclature mentioned somewhere in the article (I probably skipped over it, I was tired).
 * And just because something is rare doesn't mean it shouldn't be in the encyclopedia. (Just the opposite, IMHO).
 * ~ender 2011-07-27 18:18:PM MST — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.222.244.123 (talk)
 * It is called "white tin", and the infobox says silvery only because it has to describe actual color (which is not really white). As to rarity, we have to limit the scope in some cases. For example, every material has dozens of phases which can only be produced under extreme conditions and were described in one-two research articles only. We rarely describe those. Materialscientist (talk) 03:16, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
 * We also don't mention:
 * black tin - unrefined tin ore (cassiterite)
 * gray tin (instead of grey tin)
 * Perhaps a registered user could make some redirects?
 * ~ender 2011-08-08 1:10:AM:MST
 * Well, we see that Materialscientist is incorrect, and that the term 'white tin' merely means 'refined, metallic ore' (thanks whomever put up that information).
 * I'm guessing that means that grey/gray tin is just half-refined ore? Maybe someday we'll know.
 * I need to go write a blog article on how wikipedia/some wiki users thinks you should go somewhere else to learn about rare/unusual things. /SMH
 * ~ender 2012-07-13 21:42:PM MST — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.255.46.247 (talk)

Isotopes (reprise)
I'm reluctant to question a venerable assertion, but shouldn't "even atomic numbers" in the Isotopes section be something like "even mass numbers" or "even neutron numbers"? I thought all isotopes of tin had atomic number 50. It's been that way since 8 May 2009, so I'm probably wrong, but I don't see why. 152.135.235.188 (talk) 21:12, 17 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Good catch! Yes, it was a typo and it has now been corrected. Double sharp (talk) 06:46, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Most tonally resonant metal?
What does that even mean? that it produces more overtones??? and where is the reference? (no mention of this found in the references given). I marked that as "dubious". Dan Gluck (talk) 04:18, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

I suspect the alloy of lead and tin makes a material with great damping ability. That would cause any vibrations induced in the pipe to be degraded into heat rather than for those to build up and possibly affect nearby pipes to produce off tones. The lead provides the damping and the tin makes the alloy stiffer and stronger so it can be used to make a pipe. Unfortunately I have no references to back that up. Zedshort (talk) 02:21, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

This is an issue which has never been well answered, even in organbuilding circles. Here's my cynical view: tin was used in greater abundance in the past, because the cost was significantly less than it is today. During the 20th Century, organ reformers, while studying old organs (which were perceived as "sounding better" than modern organs), discovered large amounts of tin, and decided that tin must have a good effect on the sound. In reality, the metal used has a very slight effect on the sound (indeed, pipes made from rolled paper are practically indistinguishable from pipes made from expensive tin alloys, unless you have an experienced ear). Here's a source on the subject, which may be useful in editing this article: http://www.albany.edu/piporg-l/pipemet.html 24.164.174.152 (talk) 01:03, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Proposed merge
A merge has been proposed (not by me) between this article and Tin poisoning. Opinions? LT910001 (talk) 23:53, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
 * (I Disagree. poisoning and substances should remain separate articles.) LT910001 (talk) 23:53, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Disagree per nom. Double sharp (talk) 03:28, 19 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Disagree I promiss to expand the article! --Stone (talk) 17:06, 19 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Have removed the tag. LT910001 (talk) 23:57, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Allotropes naming
It appears that there are various names for the allotrpes (white vs silver). Should we align them? -DePiep (talk) 10:35, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 08:51, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Confusing table
Regarding subsection Occurrence: Shouldn't the world tin mine reserves table have a defined sort order? E.g. why wouldn't Indonesia be the second entry? --Mortense (talk) 09:25, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

Density
Tin density according to this page is 7.365 g/cm3. According to CRC handbook, it is 7.28. According to the RSC website, it is 7.287. Where is this page's density value coming from? 204.69.190.254 (talk) 19:27, 13 July 2016 (UTC)-Samuel
 * Hi Samuel, the densities of the elements used to populate data tables are given here. It appears someone has made a typo, instead of writing 7.265 g/cm3 they've used 7.365 g/gm3. I'll change the 1st decimal. Cheers Polyamorph (talk) 21:29, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Stannous, stannic
These terms should be clearly explained as referring respectively to bivalent- and tetravalent-tin compounds, from Latin stannum, 'tin'. I would just add it, but I'm not certain of the best spot, and there may be other such terms to account for. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:19, 6 September 2016 (UTC)