Tin - elemento sn

Tin
This is a blob of tin metal. Tin is a crystalline silvery-white metal. When a bar of tin is bent, it emits a crackling 'tin cry' as the crystals are broken.
Jurii, Creative Commons License

Word Origin: Anglo-Saxon tin, Latin stannum, both names for the element tin. Named after Etruscan god, Tinia; denoted by the Latin symbol for stannum.
Atomic number: 50
Mass number: 69
Atomicmass: 118.710
Archaeological evidence suggests that people have been using tin for at least 5500 years.
However, the origins of tin seem to be lost in history. It appears that bronzes, which are alloys of copper and tin, were used by prehistoric man some time before the pure metal was isolated. Bronzes were common in early Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, Egypt, Crete, Israel, and Peru.
The alloy oftin known as bronze was probably produced even earlier than the pure metal. An alloy is made by melting and mixing two or more metals. The mixture has properties that are different than any of the metals alone. The Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Babylonians, and Peruvians were producing bronze as far back as 2000 B.C. The alloy was probably discovered accidentally when copper and tin compounds wereheated together. Over time, a method for producing consistent bronze was developed.
Bronze became popular among ancient peoples because it was harder and tougher than copper. Before the discovery of bronze, many metal items were made out of copper. But copper is soft and bends easily. Bronze is a much better replacement for copper in tools, eating utensils, and weapons. Bronze marked a significantadvance in human civilization. This strong alloy improved transportation methods, food preparation, and quality of life during a period now known as the Bronze Age (4000—3000 B.C. ).
The origin of the name tin is lost in history. Some scholars believe it is named for the Etruscan god Tinia. During the Middle Ages, the metal was known by its Latin name, stannum. It is from this name that theelement's symbol, Sn, is derived.
Tin is a main group metal in group 14 of the periodic table. Tin shows chemical similarity to both neighboring group 14 elements, germanium and lead and has two possible oxidation states, +2 and the slightly more stable +4. Tin is the 49th most abundant element and has, with 10 stable isotopes, the largest number of stable isotopes in the periodic table. Tin isobtained chiefly from the mineral cassiterite, where it occurs as tin dioxide, SnO2.Tin is part of the carbon group in the periodic table group which consists of carbon (C), silicon (Si), germanium (Ge), tin (Sn), lead (Pb), and ununquadium (Uuq).
In modern IUPAC notation, it is called Group 14. In the old IUPAC and CAS systems, it was called Group IVB and Group IVA, respectively.[1] In the field ofsemiconductor physics, it is still universally called Group IV. The group was once also known as the tetrels (from Greek tetra, four), stemming from the Roman numeral IV in the group names, or (not coincidentally) from the fact that these elements have four valence electrons (see below).Like other groups, the members of this family show patterns in its electron configuration, especially theoutermost shells resulting in trends in chemical behavior:
Z | Element | No. of electrons/shell |
6 | carbon | 2, 4 |
14 | silicon | 2, 8, 4 |
32 | germanium | 2, 8, 18, 4 |
50 | tin | 2, 8, 18, 18, 4 |
82 | lead | 2, 8, 18, 32, 18, 4 |
114 | ununquadium | 2, 8, 18, 32, 32, 18, 4 |
Tin and lead, although with very low abundances in the crust, are nevertheless common in everyday life.They occur in highly concentrated mineral deposits, can be obtained easily in the metallic state from those minerals, and are useful as metals and as alloys in many applications.
Tin has five energy levels and being one of the elements in the carbon group it has 4 electrons in its outer energy level.

( * '''Description:''' Electron shell diagram for Tin, the 50th element in the periodic table...