Tin is one of the commonly used corrosion preventive agent for coating purposes. When it gets combined with copper it produces an amalgam called bronze. On the other hand, tin combined with various other metals produces different kinds of amalgam, one of them widely used to prevent teeth corrosion. Malaysia, Bolivia, Indonesia, Thailand, Nigeria, Australia, England are the key producers of this metal in the world.

Tin manufacturing started and was commercialized in 1952 in England. In the tin industrial manufacture process, tin is manufactured on a large scale from the extraction of ore named cassiterite. After completion of mining using a floating dredge, gravel is collected in a tank. This gravel then undergoes a series of filtrations by which tin gets separated out from gravel. Once the filtration process is over the tin undergoes several screening processes through which other elements get removed. Finally, the metal tin gets collected in a water tank and by a downward movement of water it gets collected on the water’s surface. This surface collected tin is then dried chemically. The dried tin still has some unwanted elements, which after being passed through a chemical screening process are removed.

In the end, the tin is heated in a furnace at a temperature of 400 degree Fahrenheit where it gets transformed into slag. This process is known as smelting. At the end of the smelting process this slag gets heated in a furnace to remove impurities present in it. Finally it gets heated again in furnace to remove iron. Once iron gets removed from the tin it still has to undergo one more round of heating and boiling where further impurities are removed. Pure tin comes is now ready to use for commercial purposes.

The tin manufacturing process described above produces around 99.98% pure tin, however there could be a chance of a slight difference of purity from time to time. As an environment friendly metal tin is used as a food container to store food. Metals combined with tin are used for storage purposes around the world. To prevent iron and steel from corrosion tin is widely used.

The use of tin is expected to grow further. Scientists are testing whether to use it in place of mercury, lead and cadmium due to its environment friendly nature without side effects. However it has been observed that the slag from the tin manufacturing process contains many harmful compounds like arsenic and lead. In the electronics industry people have already started using tin-silver solders. Tin is even being used in shotgun shells instead of lead.