Tin (Sn) Metal

[YT2095]

If any of you have any ideas about extracting or obtaining Tin metal here`s the place to discuss it.

I have one, it involves using 60/40 Tin/Lead solder, melt it untill all the solder flux has burned off, then dissolve it in acid, from there simple displacement should provide the Tin, or at least that`s the plan.

 

on the electromotive series, does anyone know which comes 1`st Tin or Lead in reactivity?

or can improve upon my method at all?

I only need half a gram or so, so the whole thing can be done in a test tube quite easily and no fancy equipment is needed.

 

Ideas Welcome

[jsatan]

2sec, I'm sure if you use nitric acid then you can use electrolysis to get it.

 

I think!!!!

[YT2095]

actualy, I AM using Nitric acid

and it`s bubbling away nicely at the moment, I was thinking of adding excess solder as I`m fairly sure that tin is more reactive than the lead, so I should end up with fairly pure soln of Tin Nitrate, I was considering using Magnessium to displace the tin after.

 

sound about good?

[jsatan]

mmm I think I'm thinking about tin(II) chloride.

But I'm sure you can get the lead out using this method.

 

My chem skills are poor,

http://jchemed.chem.wisc.edu/JCESoft/CCA/CCA1/R1MAIN/CD1R1630.HTM

But then how to turn the tin back.

 

I'll think about this,

Fun fun

[YT2095]

well with the excess solder, the only thing left as a soid should be unreacted solder and lead, the soln should be tin nitrate, I`ll pour that off, and then add Mg ribbon, that should then react forming magnessium nitrate soln and tin metal, then I`ll just pour of the soln and wash my tin metal.

 

an interesting observation about this solder in Nitrac acid, is that there is No formation of Nitrogen Dioxide gas??? and the bubbles are Hydrogen.

 

btw, this is the site that got me excited about obtaining Tin metal: http://www.scitoys.com/scitoys/scitoys/thermo/liquid_metal/liquid_metal.html

 

I really want some of that stuff

[jsatan]

lol. I know the metal with out even looking at the link, (I've been on that site lots).

I may try this one day (when I get some nitric acid).

Keep us informed,

 

If you had some Tin oxide (from making solar panels) add some carbon etc.

Shame I've got none, lol.

[jsatan]

PS where did you get your indium from?

[Thomas Kirby]

Have you looked for pieces at a local hobby shop? Some arts and crafts and hobby supply shops in the US sell small sheets of tin. I realize that you are in the UK, but I will bet that you can find some there.

[YT2095]

Hmmm... I can`t explain this, it`s stopped reacting now, because the "liquid"`s turned into a thick Gel like mess?

the sort you get with Hydroxides, but how can that happen when it`s made with Nitric acid?

[jsatan]

Has it got warm?

I think you have to keep it cool.

PS I think you will have some ammonium nitrate in there as well.

 

 

PPS give this a read.

http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761563439/Tin.html

[YT2095]

yeah, it gets really hot during the reaction, then it changed from clear liquid to white cloudy and gell like, now after shaking it to get the reaction moving again, it`s a dark grey Gell, with black bits in it

 

Grrrr....

 

oh yeah,Lance sent me the indium by post, we did a swap for some Gold Chloride.

[woelen]

Both indium and tin can be obtained easily from http://www.emovendo.net. Not particlularly cheap, but very very pure samples can be obtained from them. I have tin at 99.99% purity and indium at 99.99% purity. They also have gallium, but international shipping of gallium may be a problem, as it eats away aluminium and is wetting very much. A good source of gallium also is eBay.

 

Personally, I think it is best to buy some tin from such a company. Given the price of very pure tin I would not even think of messing with solder and removing the very toxic lead salts in this process. This company also sells 1 lb amounts of tin, albeit at somewhat lower purity, but also at a much lower price.

 

TIN Metal Element 1lb Shot 99.96% $16.99

TIN Metal Element 30 grams 99.99% $5.99

 

INDIUM Metal Element Teardrops 10 grams 99.999% $19.99

INDIUM Metal Element Teardrops 25 grams 99.99% $28.99

 

From this company, I purchased the 30 grams of tin and the 25 grams of indium (I also ordered 30 grams of Se-shot and 30 grams of Ag-shot). Combined shipping to Europe was around $6 as far as I remember. The samples are really nice and pure! They can ship all these elements internationally, because of the fact that they are in shot format or bulk format. This makes them much less dangerous. Only iodine, cadmium and gallium from their list are not shipped internationally as far as I remember.

[YT2095]

Cheers, I`ll bear that in mind, I need to do some re-stoking anyway, I`ll order some mercury and Mg ribbon too while I`m at it.

 

btw, I decided to decant this soln off and try the Mg Ribbon displacement, it`s working great! slow but just great, I can see the metalic crystals forming, they should wash up quite nicely when it`s finished

 

edit: a perfectly horrible thought just occured to me, I hope this IS tin that I`m producing and not Lead, can anyone confim that Tin is more reactive than Lead for me, I`m reasonably certain it is, but memory Can fade with time

[budullewraagh]

tin is significantly more active than lead, so you should have tin

[woelen]

Cheers' date=' I`ll bear that in mind, I need to do some re-stoking anyway, I`ll order some mercury and Mg ribbon too while I`m at it.

 

btw, I decided to decant this soln off and try the Mg Ribbon displacement, it`s working great! slow but just great, I can see the metalic crystals forming, they should wash up quite nicely when it`s finished

 

edit: a perfectly horrible thought just occured to me, I hope this IS tin that I`m producing and not Lead, can anyone confim that Tin is more reactive than Lead for me, I`m reasonably certain it is, but memory Can fade with time [/quote']

It is lead . I once did such an experiment with a solution of lead acetate and I had beautiful dentrites of crystalline lead.

In your solution, you do not have any tin at all! Tin dissolves in nitric acid, but the product formed is insoluble hydrous SnO2. This explains your white gel-like liquid. The lead from the solder does go in solution as colorless Pb(2+) ions. By decanting the clear liquid, you keep the lead and you discard the tin (as that is in the white precipitate).

 

I should have read your post a little more carefully before, but it is VERY hard to extract tin from a mix of tin and lead, because of the fact that you get tin(IV) instead of tin(II). The tin(IV) gel can be dissolved in concentrated alkali, but it will be quite a mess to recoved tin metal from that.

 

Using HCl or H2SO4 for recovering tin from Sn/Pb mix also is quite impossible. Now the lead is giving troubles, because the alloy of both metals is covered by an impermeable layer of PbCl2 or PbSO4 and the alloy simply does not dissolve.

[YT2095]

Sh!t (

 

well that`s Totaly spoiled my day, what makes it worse is that I used the last of Nitric acid and have nearly run out of Mg ribbon

[woelen]

Sh!t (

 

well that`s Totaly spoiled my day' date=' what makes it worse is that I used the last of Nitric acid and have nearly run out of Mg ribbon [/quote']

Sometimes life is sooo hard . Real science comes with great moments of enlightment and dark moments of disappointment.

You can also look at it from the bright side. You've learnt a lot about the chemistry of tin . The best teacher is practice.... and now you'll not easily forget, while reading it in a book just is good for keeping the knowledge for a few weeks at most.

[YT2095]

well in the end (probably out of frustration) I put All the testubes of different stages into one big boiling tube, added the previously messed up Ga In Pb Sn metal blob to that too (it was liquid at 10c) as well as my gallium Nitrate soln, and boiled the sucker to within an inch of it`s life, washed the lot out with water, and now have a lump of bright metal that ressembles smooth metalic putty and very shiney too!

 

I`ve now got that under a 10% H2SO4 and 1% HNO3 soln to shift any impurities/oxides etc...

 

so I still have a new product, just not the one I wanted, I guess it`s EBay time for some 99.99% pure products *sigh*

[Thomas Kirby]

Solder is anywhere from 50 to 63 percent lead. Even 99 percent pure is better than 37 percent. That white gel thing actually sounds like a chance at getting pure tin out of the mix if it comes out clean. Won't it dissolve in hydrochloric acid?

 

That thirty grams of tin for $5.99 sounds like a bargain for 99.99 percent pure.

[YT2095]

the stuff I have is 60/40 Tin Lead respectively.

yeah, I think I`ll invest in one or 2 of these items, I could do with a re-stock anyway as it`s coming into autumn again, and I like to get "fresher" products in yearly anyway.

as for the gel Hydrochloric acid might well work, only I`m out of that too and Nitric now and Mg ribbon almost.

at least I know one way NOT to do it, besides, it`s pointless having all these elements and chems if you`re not going to use and enjoy them anyway, so all`s not lost

[Thomas Kirby]

If you ever decide that you need to separate tin and lead, you might look at some kind of electrolytic method with a precise voltage control and tin chloride for the electrolyte. There is more to it than that, but that might some time be worth doing and enjoyable.

 

I never had a chance to weigh in, but I am completely against the lead-free circuit board movement. Lead-free for water pipes I am all for, but until the time that we have lead-free alloys that are at least as sturdy as the original solder, we should use the old stuff. That's another issue, I suppose.

[Borek]

Note that PbCl2 is only slightly soluble.

 

Best,

Borek

--

Chemical calculators at www.chembuddy.com

pH calculation

concentration conversion

[folder]

The lead will plate out first if you try electrolysis. It would probably be easier to precipitate it with HCl than to try and determine when it is all out of the solution.

[YT2095]

well thus far I`ve managed to electrolise 2 rod ingots of solder in a weak (5%) Hcl Soln, at the Anode was a mixture of dark grey and sometimes white "powder" that seem to fall off the ingot at intervals along with the "Fizzing", I ran this at 2.5 volts with a 5 amp potential, I found that any higher voltage and I`de get gas at the cathode as well (and the psu would heat up). At the Cathode there was a build up of grey spongey metal with really Odd looking clear Needle like crystals forming too???

I had the same crystals form when I left a peice of solder in a test tube of HCl over night too, their shape is definately monoclinic but at a really sharp angle, finding the tip is extremely difficult also as they`re so fine. I`ve no idea what they are yet, but to form in such a weak soln, I can`t imagine their solubility being very high, so it`s possibly the lead chloride?

I did this until the Anode had completely "dissolved" then left the 2 products in the soln over night and then filtered out the particulate matter.

 

also as luck would have it, I found a rather large chunk of Mg Metal, so I`ll not have to worry about using the last inch of my Mg Ribbon

 

I`ll post the results, Good or Bad when I get some...

[jsatan]

How come alu wont work?

:/

 

NM, alu oxide layer, duh!!