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Tin is a moderately expensive metal (costing 52 cents a pound in 1940) whose primary use is in copper alloys such as bronzes and brasses. Tin hardens the alloy and imparts added corrosion resistance. Another important use of tin is as tin plate to protect easily corroded metals such as iron and its alloys. Many low-melting alloys such as solder and type metal include tin in their composition.
Tin ore is primarily cassiterite, a tin oxide. This is concentrated and reduced with carbon, then resmelted to remove impurities. If very high purity is needed, the tin is refined electrolytically.
Nowhere is tin found more abundantly than in Southeast
Asia. Malaya
was the world’s leading producer of tin in 1941, and important deposits
were
found in the Netherlands
East Indies, Burma, and Thailand. All these
areas fell under Japanese
control
early in the war. The Allies were forced to rely on South
American sources for
most of their tin, although historically Cornwall in Britain was an
important source of tin and was still producing in 1941. China
also produced significant tin,
but under wartime conditions production dropped from 17,000 tons in
1940 to 4000 tons in 1943. It was sometimes U.S. practice to substitute
silicon for tin in bronzes to conserve the limited supply.
References
U.S. Geological Survey (accessed 29 December 2006)
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