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You're listening to Chemistry in its ingredient brought to you by Chemistry World, the magazine of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

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Hello, this week the aspect that changed the course of business and also gave beginning to the Bronze Age. We discover out why the Romans got here to Britain and why your organ can exit of tune in winter maybe irreversibly. But tin followers should watch out because much of what we call tin is not.

Katherine Holt

Tin cans, tin foil, tin whistles, tin soldiers.....these are that issues that come to thoughts once we consider tin. Which is unfortunate, as tin cans are literally made from steel; tin foil is made from aluminium and tin whistles....well you get the idea. To be related to a list of out of date consumable gadgets is very unlucky for tin, once we consider that it was responsible for actually changing civilisation! Have you ever heard of the Bronze Age? Well, some enterprising steel workers at the top of the Stone Age found that the addition of a small amount of tin into molten copper resulted in a new alloy. It was more durable than copper but also a lot easier to form, mould and sharpen. This discovery was so revolutionary that that Bronze Age was born - a reputation given to any civilisation which made tools and weapons from this alloy of copper and tin.


So essential was tin that the secrets and techniques of its trade were closely guarded. The historic Greeks spoke of the 'Cassiterides ' or 'Tin Islands' which were believed to lie off the north west coast of Europe. These mysterious islands have by no means been identified and doubtless by no means existed. All the Greeks knew was that tin came to them by sea and from the north-west and so the story arose of the tin islands. It is probably going the tin came from northern Spain and from Cornwall. The truth is, the strategic significance of the Cornish tin mines is considered one of the the reason why the Roman Empire invaded Britain.


Tin may have performed another historic position - this time within the defeat of Napolean's army within the Russian marketing campaign of 1812. It has been claimed that in the extreme chilly the tin buttons on the soldier's uniforms disintegrated into powder, leading to severe loss of life from hypothermia. The accuracy of this story is debatable, but the transformation of tin from a shiny steel right into a grey powder at low temperatures is chemical truth.


Within the cold winters of Northern Europe the loss of tin organ pipes as they started to disintegrate into dust has been identified for centuries as 'tin pest', 'tin disease' or 'tin leprosy'. This process is definitely a quite simple chemical transformation of one structural form of tin - silvery, metallic 'white tin' or 'beta tin' - into one other - brittle, non-metallic 'gray tin' or 'alpha tin'. For pure tin the transition happens at 13.2 oC but the transition temperature is lower, or does not occur at all, if there are sufficient impurities present, for instance if tin is alloyed with one other metal.


A modern day downside with 'tin pest' has thus arisen, as the tin-lead alloys used to coat leads in electrical gear have generally been replaced with pure tin because of new environmental legislation. In chilly temperatures the metallic beta tin coating transforms into non-conducting, brittle alpha tin and falls off the leads. The loose alpha tin powder then moves around inside the equipment, Tin Can Packaging Box but because it's non-conducting it would not cause a problem. However, in warmer temperatures this alpha tin powder transforms back to conducting beta tin, resulting in short circuits and all sorts of issues.


The solution to defeat 'tin pest' is to combine tin with other metals, and lately tin is mainly used to form alloys - for instance bronze, pewter and solders. Since tin is probably the most tonally resonant of all metals it's utilized in bell metals and to make organ pipes, which are usually a mixture of 50:50 tin and lead. The proportion of tin generally determines the pipe's tone.


And metal tin can box so we return to the humble tin can. Although not made from tin, cans are often coated with tin on the inside to forestall corrosion. So while it could now seem that tin plays a small function in our on a regular basis lives, remember that once it figured in the rise and fall of civilisations.


So it was the tin that lured the Romans to Britain - funny that, there was me thinking it was the great weather. Telling Tin's tale was Katherine Holt from UCL. Next week the substance that makes you see pink.

Brian Clegg

In case you are listening to this podcast on a pc with a standard colour monitor Europium might be enhancing your view of the Chemistry World webpage. When colour TVs have been first developed, the crimson pixels had been relatively weak, which meant the whole colour spectrum needed to be saved muted. But a phosphor doped with europium proved a a lot better, brighter source of red and is still current in most surviving monitors and TVs that predate the flat display revolution.

Chris Smith

And you can hear from Brian Clegg how the facility of Europium was harnessed in the first place and how it was found on subsequent week's Chemistry in its Element, I hope you'll be able to be part of us. If you loved this informative article and you would like to receive more details relating to tin packaging (i was reading this) kindly visit our own webpage. Until then, I'm Chris Smith, thanks for listening and goodbye.

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