Vietnam rejects Posco steel mill project

AFP: "Vietnam has rejected a proposal by South Korea’s Posco Group to build a 5.4-billion-dollar steel mill near a coastal resort, citing environmental concerns, state media reported on Friday.

The hot-rolled steel mill proposed for south-central Nha Trang’s Van Phong Bay would have breached environmental protection rules, said a decision from Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, according to the Tien Phong (Pioneer) daily.

The newspaper, and other media reports, said another reason the government scrapped the project was that it would have clashed with the planned development of a major container port in Van Phong Bay."

Ultrathin tin oxide films were deposited on SiO2 nanoparticles

Science Letter: "Ultrathin tin oxide films were deposited on SiO2 nanoparticles using atomic layer deposition (ALD) techniques with SnCl4 and H2O2 as the reactants. These SnOx films were then exposed to 02 and CO gas pressure at 300 degrees C to measure and understand their ability to serve as CO gas sensors,' researchers in the United States report."

Research from S.N. Zhevnenko et al broadens understanding of metals research

Science Letter: "According to a study from Russia, 'The surface tensions of pure copper and its alloys with antimony, tin, and indium have been measured for free surfaces and grain boundaries. The measurements have been conducted at 1000 degrees C in a hydrogen atmosphere by the zero-creep method in combination with the thermal-grooving method.'

'The surface-tension isotherms satisfy the Szyszkowski's equation. Based on the data obtained, the values of adsorptive capacity of free surface and grain boundaries (z(FS) and z(GB)), constants of adsorption equilibrium (b(FS) and b(GB)), occupancies (fraction of occupied sites theta), and free energies of binding of impurity atoms with the surface (Delta F) have been calculated,' wrote S.N. Zhevnenko and colleagues."

Congo Unrest Disrupts Critical Mine Reforms

Wall Street Journal: "As rebel fighting in eastern Congo threatens to escalate into a regional conflict, government officials in Kinshasa have put on hold important decisions affecting the mining industry, a delay that likely pushes back international investment plans and undercuts the country's efforts to rebuild its shattered economy."

Illegal mining fuels DR Congo war

BBC NEWS: "Rebel groups, as well as the Congolese army, trade in the minerals and that provides the money to enable them to keep fighting."

For some armed groups the war has become little more than a private racket with the minerals themselves providing the motive for carrying on the fighting, according to Carina Tertsakian of the international campaign organisation Global Witness.

Some end-users of tin are unaware of where the product comes from  

The region accounts for 5% of the global supply of cassiterite, the primary ore of tin and a crucial element of all kinds of electronic circuitry, and is worth $70 million a year.

"To reach the world market the ore is flown to the regional capital of Goma and then, via Rwanda and Uganda, it reaches to east African ports of Mombasa in Kenya and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania," says Harrison Mitchell of the Resource Consulting Services.

The ore is then shipped to smelters who buy tin on the open market. Located predominantly in India, China, Malaysia and Thailand, these smelters sell tin to component manufacturers.

Provenance required

Public pressure has forced the diamond trade to monitor sources and Mr Mitchell says the same should now apply to the trade in cassiterite.

There is a system in place to prove the provenance of diamonds "We talked to some high profile electronic companies and we found that the final end-users of tin were generally unaware of where the product was coming from," he says.

There are many legal mining operations within the Democratic Republic of Congo but in the contested Eastern region, there are now proposals to limit the illegal trade.

These range from calls for a total ban, to the idea of chemically identifying the varieties of tin coming out of each area, which would allow exporters to filter out the worst sources.

Campaigners say that any indiscriminate ban will severely hurt the long-suffering and impoverished local population. The programme relating to this issue can be heard on the 

Business Daily podcast dated 11 Nov 08

Cadmium Contained in Sludge Fertilizers under Closer Scrutiny

Factiva: "The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries' commission to review the nation's regulations concerning sludge fertilizers has convened its first meeting, resulting in an agreement that the commission further discusses how to better control the amount of cadmium contained in these fertilizers."

Sludge fertilizers were previously categorized as specially designated fertilizers in Japan, but a 1999 amendment to the Fertilizer Control Law changed their classification to ordinary commercial fertilizers. This means that fertilizer makers need to gain approval from the relevant authorities to make sludge fertilizers by demonstrating that the contents of arsenic, cadmium, mercury, nickel, chromium and lead in their products are within stipulated ranges

Innovative materials for energy technology

Scopus: "High performance materials are indispensable for economical and environmentally acceptable operation of fusion power and innovative fission reactor systems."

Finally, the corrosion behaviour of zirconium-1.5 wt.% tin alloy, a well established cladding material for nuclear fuel rods, will be shown in different environments.

Lubricities of metal disulfides resulted from their oxidative and structural properties

Scopus: "The lubrication properties (friction, antiwear, and antigalling) of tungsten disulfide (WS2), molybdenum disulfide (MOS2), and a newly synthetic tin disulfide (SnS2) having a layered crystal structure were investigated using a Falex tester, where they were added to lithium stearate soap grease."

It was found that the lubrication properties of these metal disulfides related well to their thermal characteristics. From X-ray diffraction results, WS2 and MoS2 showed large c/na values, indicating a wide van der Waals gap between layers, but SnS2 did not have a large c/na value, although it had good lubricity

The effect of surface modification and stannate concentration on the corrosion protection performance of mag

Scopus: "Increasing stannate concentration was found to have an adverse effect on the corrosion resistance. Results showed that a simple immersion in a dilute stannate solution is very effective for improving the corrosion resistance of Mg alloys."

Enhanced lifetime in porous silicon light-emitting diodes with fluorine doped tin oxide electrodes

Scopus: "This result indicates that the well known beneficial effects of fluorinated species in the improvement of resistance to irradiation and carrier injection degradation in metal-oxide-semiconductor devices might be also observed in PS devices"

Tin Makes a Comeback - Seeking Alpha

Seeking Alpha: "'The reason people are bullish on tin is not a demand story; it's a supply story,' said Catherine Virga, an analyst with CPM Group in New York and one of the participants on the Inside Commodities base metals panel.

And that supply story has been building for years. The top two producers of tin are China and Indonesia, which combined in 2007 to produce 70% of the world's mined tin, and actions in those two countries are starting to limit the long-term supply picture.

But even with this expected deficit, there's no sign of supply catching up, which does point to an eventual opportunity.

Virga is quick to point out this isn't an immediate get-rich-quick opportunity. "No large surge in price is expected anytime soon because of the economy," she says.

Still, the fact remains that tin is living in an extremely rare fundamentals position: dwindling supply, steady-state demand and an extremely suppressed price. Maybe no jump is imminent should the global economy continue to flounder, but the fundamentals are in place for a price jump when the recovery starts."

KML Withdraws from Riverside Alluvial Mine Contract

Kangaroo Metals Limited (ASX: KML), a diversified exploration and mining company,

has wound back the purchase agreement for the Riverside Alluvial Tin Mine. Acquisition

of the South Mount Cameron Assets was targeted as a test bed for larger operations,

such as that at California Creek, with potential in its own right to generate income in the

short to medium term. A combination of environmental factors, limited additional

inventory, thefts and operational issues have shown ongoing operations at the Riverside

Alluvial Tin Mine to be unsustainable during an economic and commodities crisis. As

such, KML has reached agreement with the vendor to wind back the contract to limit

any further outgoings. KML will divest all assets in Tasmania as part of the company’s

reevaluation of operations.

A new EU directive to improve the safety of toys

GozoNews.Com: "The Internal Market Committee also tightened up the restrictions on substances that are carcinogenic, mutagenic or toxic for reproduction (CMR), saying these should be almost completely banned. The conditions for exemption were clarified and made stricter. The committee also banned the use of heavy metals such as arsenic, cadmium, chromium (VI), lead, mercury and organic tin in the manufacture of toys."

A new route to self-assembled tin dioxide nanospheres: Fabrication and characterization

Scopus: "Nearly monodispersed self-assembled tin dioxide (SnO2) nanospheres with intense photoluminescence (PL) were synthesized using a new wet chemistry technique. Instead of coprecipitating stannous salts, bulk tin (Sn) metal was oxidized at room temperature in a solution of hydrogen peroxide and deionized water containing polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) and ethylenediamine (EDA). SnO2 nanocrystals were produced with diameters of ∼3.8 nm that spontaneously self-assembled into uniform SnO2 nanospheres with diameters of ∼30 nm."

MSC says to expect lower performance this year

Factiva: "Malaysia Smelting Corporation Bhd (MSC) warned yesterday that its overall performance for its financial year ending Dec 31, 2008 (FY08) is expected to be lower than that of FY07, due to the drastic decline of tin prices.

MSC said tin prices had fallen substantially with the drastic slowdown in the global economy as a result of the financial crisis. This, coupled with the delay in the resumption of its small scale tin mining operations, would have an adverse impact on its performance."