Today TinDay
February 18, 2022 11:42 PM Subscribe
19th Feb is the 50th day of the year. If you forget to celebrate DarwinDay, you have a week to gird your loins for TinDay 50Sn being the 50th element; but don't let it go to your head. Tin is one of the metals important for future technologies [MIFT] and the spot price has tripled during Coronarama; so we need to know something about it.
- Price: $43/kg; aluminum Al $3/kg; copper Cu $10; Nickel Ni $24; Silver Ag $770/kg
- Density: 7.3g/cm3; more than Al 2.7; same as iron Fe 7.8; less than lead Pb 11.3
- Melts in a pizza oven: 230°C, 445°F
- Kernow: Stannary Charters of 1201 and 1305 granted tinners the right to prospect and mine throughout Cornwall but all the tin had to be sent to Stannary Towns for assay: Lostwithiel, Bodmin, Liskeard, Truro and Helston. Geevor [13m] the last commercial tin mine closed in 1990
- Bronze is 10-12% tin. So Cornish tin was in demand through the Bronze Age
- Bronze medal winners are happier
- Pewter: is 90% tin with antimony Sb 5%; copper Cu 2% [and formerly Pb]. Plates pots flagons and tankards from the Mary Rose
- Irish travellers no longer ply a trade as tinkers because plastic utensils are brighter cheaper
- The Creak. Crank up the volume to hear the cry of tin with Andrea Sella [5m]
- Tin pest [11m] with Cody: white β tin will corrupt to a brittle ceramic allotrope called grey α tin if slowly cooled
- Poliakoff and Barnes show and tell [15m]
- ITO: Indium (which also creaks) tin oxide is a transparent conductor for touch screens
- TBT: Tributyl-tin was an anti-fouling paint for ship's hulls. Horribly toxic to marine wildlife: sea snails changing sex, deforming the shells of oysters. Banned since 2008 by the IMO.
- Rin Tin Tin [1m] is not made of tin; Tintin is not made of tin, nor is Milou the dog; tinfoil has been made of aluminum [lighter cheaper] since WWII.
- Plate glass [7m] : is made on tin by Pilkington. Needs an atmosphere of nitrogen and hydrogen to prevent the ultra-smooth molten tin from oxidizing.
- Solder: I know nothing about solder except it uses more of the world's remaining tin than any other product
- Blood
diamondscassiterite SnO2 in Congo
If Feb 19 is Tin Day, that means I missed Jan 30, Zinc Day. Come back, Zinc!
posted by otherchaz at 1:07 AM on February 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by otherchaz at 1:07 AM on February 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
Tin has ten stable isotopes, more than any other element.
Xenon was in second place with nine at least as late as 1991, but has since been disqualified for cheating with 2 or more very long half lived radioactive isotopes detected by more sensitive tests which became available after that. I don’t know who's in second place now.
posted by jamjam at 2:20 AM on February 19, 2022 [4 favorites]
Xenon was in second place with nine at least as late as 1991, but has since been disqualified for cheating with 2 or more very long half lived radioactive isotopes detected by more sensitive tests which became available after that. I don’t know who's in second place now.
posted by jamjam at 2:20 AM on February 19, 2022 [4 favorites]
Irish travellers no longer ply a trade as tinkers because plastic utensils are brighter cheaper
My mother sometimes said that something “wasn’t worth a tinker’s dam”, an expression that had to be explained to me. My maternal ancestors came to the states from England/Ireland in the early 1600s, so I wonder now how many generations that expression has been passed along the family line devoid of direct context.
And since, by the time I heard it, it was pronounced “TEEN-kers”, I never made the association with tin. This entire post is a joy, made more dear by hidden parts of my familial past. Thanks for the wealth of information!
posted by Silvery Fish at 4:47 AM on February 19, 2022
My mother sometimes said that something “wasn’t worth a tinker’s dam”, an expression that had to be explained to me. My maternal ancestors came to the states from England/Ireland in the early 1600s, so I wonder now how many generations that expression has been passed along the family line devoid of direct context.
And since, by the time I heard it, it was pronounced “TEEN-kers”, I never made the association with tin. This entire post is a joy, made more dear by hidden parts of my familial past. Thanks for the wealth of information!
posted by Silvery Fish at 4:47 AM on February 19, 2022
I also have Cornish tin miners in my ancestry. One of the great trips of my life was going to Cornwall, eating real Cornish pasties, standing in front of the house where my great-great-grandparents met in Camborne, visiting the graves of my great-great-great grandparents, and going down a tin mine. And getting to share all that with my wife and teenage son. Tin mining is an interesting process, but I can see why my forebears jumped at the chance to work on the railroad instead.
posted by rikschell at 5:11 AM on February 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by rikschell at 5:11 AM on February 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
I should probably wait until someone puts up a post about zinc, but the focus on the many uses of an element reminded me of this Zinc Oxide sketch from the Kentucky Fried Movie. TW: deaths, general mayhem. (Yes, I know that Zinc Oxide is a compound, not an element.) Zinc and Tin are commonly used as an alloy, so this is on-topic ish.
posted by Larry David Syndrome at 5:14 AM on February 19, 2022
posted by Larry David Syndrome at 5:14 AM on February 19, 2022
The Cornish independence movement will be getting a boost from this, I imagine.
posted by acb at 5:43 AM on February 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by acb at 5:43 AM on February 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
Hmm, if I remember I'll make a St Piran's day post in a couple of weeks.
posted by rikschell at 6:00 AM on February 19, 2022
posted by rikschell at 6:00 AM on February 19, 2022
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whisker_(metallurgy)#Tin_whisker_examples_and_incidents
posted by Chef Flamboyardee at 6:42 AM on February 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Chef Flamboyardee at 6:42 AM on February 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
The Poliakoff and Barnes link should be to Tin - Periodic Table of Videos.
Tin is associated with two of my favourite words: "stannous" (of tin), and [shared with other metals] "eutectic". Tin oxide coating allows lightweight beer bottles to be just strong enough to make it through one use: and it's much cheaper to transport and remelt broken glass cullet than wash and reuse bottles.
Most electronic solders use tin. If you're old and grumpy and/or work on US military applications, that's tin/lead solder, which when mixed in the right proportion forms an alloy with a sharply-defined melting point much lower than the melting point of tin or lead: that's a eutectic system. I'm currently using a low temperature Bi57 42Sn Ag1 eutectic solder (that's 57% Bismuth, 42% Tin and 1% Silver) for surface-mount work. It melts at only 140 °C and flows really well. The flux it uses smells like candyfloss, so I have to resist the urge to lick it.
posted by scruss at 8:19 AM on February 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
Tin is associated with two of my favourite words: "stannous" (of tin), and [shared with other metals] "eutectic". Tin oxide coating allows lightweight beer bottles to be just strong enough to make it through one use: and it's much cheaper to transport and remelt broken glass cullet than wash and reuse bottles.
Most electronic solders use tin. If you're old and grumpy and/or work on US military applications, that's tin/lead solder, which when mixed in the right proportion forms an alloy with a sharply-defined melting point much lower than the melting point of tin or lead: that's a eutectic system. I'm currently using a low temperature Bi57 42Sn Ag1 eutectic solder (that's 57% Bismuth, 42% Tin and 1% Silver) for surface-mount work. It melts at only 140 °C and flows really well. The flux it uses smells like candyfloss, so I have to resist the urge to lick it.
posted by scruss at 8:19 AM on February 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
Neat! Today I learned that my birthday is Tin Day.
posted by bouvin at 11:40 AM on February 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by bouvin at 11:40 AM on February 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
If you are using crest pro health you are swishing a bit of tin in your mouth(stannous flouride)
posted by roguewraith at 11:53 AM on February 19, 2022
posted by roguewraith at 11:53 AM on February 19, 2022
Tinykke med fødselsdagen, bouvin!
posted by BobTheScientist at 12:21 PM on February 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by BobTheScientist at 12:21 PM on February 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
Question regarding tin-lead solder: Is there perhaps a relationship between grumpy old antisocial electronics people and exposure to lead; as well as grumpy antisocial gun nuts and lead bullets. This has been on my mind lately.
posted by Verg at 1:09 PM on February 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Verg at 1:09 PM on February 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
Somebody on Metafilter pointed out that we are a metals civilization, and that seems very true. It’s hard to find a non-radioactive metal we aren’t using for something.
But really, we’re a metals species. And we have serious blind spots about the ways they can harm us.
I like the old style radar dish heaters that use wire wound porcelain heating elements with light bulb threaded bases and porcelain sockets, and a few years ago I mounted one vertically in a porcelain light fixture designed for a schoolhouse globe, replaced the globe with a Pyrex tube about 14" long and 3" wide, with a porcelain cap, and ran the thing at low power on top of the toilet tank in the bathroom for a little extra warmth.
It was only about 150 watts, and since the element was designed for 660 watts it barely glowed red and you couldn’t really see it unless the lights were off.
It even so, within about six months so much metal vapor had deposited itself on the glass tube that you couldn’t see what was in there. Which means that all the other heaters I use are putting a LOT more metal vapor into the air than that! It’s hot, so it rises and deposits on other things, and presumably I don’t breathe that much of it, but 'that much' isn’t the same thing as none, and there may very well be long and short term health consequences.
I haven’t looked it up recently, but I seem to recall that lead has higher vapor pressure than the nickel and chrome of nichrome at comparable heats, so I would guess that half a lifetime of bending over soldering jobs at your bench could result in significant lead exposure and all the health problems and personality changes such exposure entails.
posted by jamjam at 7:41 PM on February 19, 2022
But really, we’re a metals species. And we have serious blind spots about the ways they can harm us.
I like the old style radar dish heaters that use wire wound porcelain heating elements with light bulb threaded bases and porcelain sockets, and a few years ago I mounted one vertically in a porcelain light fixture designed for a schoolhouse globe, replaced the globe with a Pyrex tube about 14" long and 3" wide, with a porcelain cap, and ran the thing at low power on top of the toilet tank in the bathroom for a little extra warmth.
It was only about 150 watts, and since the element was designed for 660 watts it barely glowed red and you couldn’t really see it unless the lights were off.
It even so, within about six months so much metal vapor had deposited itself on the glass tube that you couldn’t see what was in there. Which means that all the other heaters I use are putting a LOT more metal vapor into the air than that! It’s hot, so it rises and deposits on other things, and presumably I don’t breathe that much of it, but 'that much' isn’t the same thing as none, and there may very well be long and short term health consequences.
I haven’t looked it up recently, but I seem to recall that lead has higher vapor pressure than the nickel and chrome of nichrome at comparable heats, so I would guess that half a lifetime of bending over soldering jobs at your bench could result in significant lead exposure and all the health problems and personality changes such exposure entails.
posted by jamjam at 7:41 PM on February 19, 2022
« Older Do You Know Who That Worker You Just Hired Really... | Megalo-[polis]-mania Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
Some of my ancestors were Cornish tin miners, so by rights the stuff ought to be in my blood, but I don't know that much about it & look forward to checking out these links.
posted by misteraitch at 11:54 PM on February 18, 2022 [6 favorites]