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Tin is an element perhaps well known for its exercise in atomic number 50 cans — which , these day , are almost always in reality aluminum . Even the original tin cans , first enclose in the 1800s , were mostly steel , plated with tin .
So atomic number 50 may be unassuming , but it ’s not unimportant . This metal is used to prevent erosion and to develop glass . It ’s most often rule mixed , or alloyed , with other metals . Pewter , for example , is mostly tin .
A “tin can” used to store food. Most cans used for this purpose are now tin-plated steel.
Sources of tin
Tin is relatively rare , seduce up only about 2 parts per million of the Earth ’s crust , agree to the U.S. Geologic Survey . Tin is extracted from various ore , chiefly from Cassiterite ( SnO2 ) . The metal is produced from reducing the oxide ore with coal in a furnace .
Very little tin has been discover in the United States , much of it in Alaska and California . According to Los Alamos National Laboratory , the alloy is mainly get in Malaya , Bolivia , Indonesia , Zaire , Thailand and Nigeria .
Uses of tin
Perhaps the most of import use of tin , historically , has been to make bronze — an metal ofcopperand cannister or other metal — that modify civilization by usher in the Bronze Age . masses began establish or trading for bronze tools and weapons at dissimilar times , depending on geography , but the Bronze Age is commonly accepted to have started around 3300 B.C. in the Near East .
Just the facts
According to the Jefferson National Linear Accelerator Laboratory , the place of tin are :
An former metallic element
Tin ’s usage in bronze stretches back some 5,000 age . It has also seem occasionally in the archaeological record on its own . For example , researcher excavating at the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem in 2011 discovered a button - sized piece of atomic number 50 stamped with the Aramaic words for " pure for God . " This seal may have been used to mark ceremonially pure objects for rituals , according to a written report in theHaaretz Newspaper .
Electron configuration and elemental properties of tin.
Beyond bronze , tin ’s greatest part to humankind was probably the humble tin can . The can had its origins in the perennial problem of how to fertilize an on - the - move army . According to the Can Manufacturers Institute ( yes , even cans have a craft organisation ) , Napoleon Bonaparte offered a reward in 1795 to anyone who could fall up with a way to carry on solid food for military use . In 1810 , Gallic chef Nicolas Appert won the 12,000 - franc prize by devise canning — the process of seal nutrient or drink in a jarful or bottle with the use of boiling water .
This discovery clear up the way of life for the invention of the tin can only a year later . In 1810 , British merchandiser Peter Durand got a letters patent for using tinplated blade to can nutrient . Tin resists erosion , reach it an ideal cover for comparatively cheap sword .
The tin can make it on American shore in 1818 , and Thomas Kensett & Co , a make up company , patented the Sn can in America in 1825 . The Civil War prompted the increased popularity of the tin can , as generals once again searched for a way to feed their soldier .
Tin ’s heyday terminate in the mid-20thcentury , however , when Coors Brewery introduced the first aluminum can . Cheaper , lighter and recyclable , atomic number 13 apace overtook tin and steel .
But tin can still has its use . Tin plus the elementniobiummakes a superconductive alloy used for conducting wire . A can / lead alloy is used to make solder . Copper and other metallic element are mixed with tin to make pewter , which was once a common metal for tableware . And window glass gets its silky smooth surface from a mold of liquified tin , a method call thePilkington operation .
Who knew?
Current research
Recently , technical school researchers have gotten excited aboutgraphene , a single - particle layer of C that is both harder than diamonds and stretchy like rubber . It ’s entirely possible that the next high - tech progression like graphene will get along from lowly Sn .
investigator are Stanford University and the Department of Energy ’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have invented a one - particle - thick layer of tin they ’re calling stanene .
Stanene is peculiar because it is the first fabric able-bodied to guide electricity with 100 percent efficiency at way temperature . The addition of a fewfluorineatoms maintains this efficiency up to and beyond the temperature at which computer splintering operate — up to about 212 F ( 100 cytosine ) .
" consort to Moore ’s legal philosophy , the number of transistors in a impenetrable integrated circuit has double close to every two years , " study investigator Yong Xu , now a physicist at Tsinghua University in Beijing , tell Live Science . " As a upshot , the great power compactness of integrated racing circuit increases exponentially , leading to serious problems of power use and hotness dissipation . "
Xu and his team , including physicist Shoucheng Zhang at Stanford , knew they necessitate a profound element with the property of a so - call " topologic insulator . " A topologic insulator is a material that behave electricity along its surface , but does not conduct electricity in its interior .
" Many topological insulators have been fabricated by heavy elements include quicksilver , bismuth , antimony , tellurium and Se , " Xu order . " None of them were thoroughgoing conductors of electrical energy at way temperature . "
Tin had n’t been studied for this purpose before . But Xu and his colleagues found that when Sn atoms are arranged in a unmarried , honeycomb layer , the constituent ' dimension change . It becomes a pure conductor of electrical energy at way temperature , with not a single stray electron lost , the research worker reported in November 2014 .
Electronics made with stanene should thus acquire less heat and guide less magnate than their silicon counterparts .
Xu and his cooperator made the single - bed tin with a process called molecular beam epitaxy , which condenses gaseous version of the element in a thin layer inside a vacuum . It ’s a ambitious process , Xu tell , requiring precise temperature and growth speed of the layer to control the atomic structure is just veracious . The squad hopes to develop cheaper and easier ways to make stanene in the future .
" The next step is to develop gamy - quality stanene sample distribution on the large plate and then employ the fabric for fundamental research and practical applications , " Xu said .
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