Alloys containing antimony

Antimony Alloys. Approximately one-half of the total antimony demand is for metal used in antimony alloys. Antimonial lead is a term used to describe lead alloys containing antimony in proportions of up to 25%. Most commercial lead—antimony alloys have antimony contents less than 11%. The compositions of several important antimony alloys are given in Table 4. 

Representative alloys containing antimony arc described in the Tabic L Metallic antimony is an effective pearlitizing agent for producing pearlitic cast iron, The principal use of antimony, however, is in the form of the oxide Its major application is as a flame retardant for plastics and textiles, Other applications of importance are in glass, pigments, and catalysts. 

Lead alloys containing antimony in the range 1-17 % have the applications noted below ... 

Another method of bonding involved the use of special metal alloys which were capable of reacting with and combining with sulphur. The earliest patent for the use of alloys was in Germany in 1904 [10]. Daft patented alloys containing antimony in the US between 1912 and 1913 [11, 12, 13, 14]. He also claimed the use of alloys of copper and zinc with bismuth and arsenic. These alloys were electrically deposited on the metal and the bonds to rubber were formed during the vulcanisation process. 

When an alloy containing antimony is heated briefly with iodine, anti-monyv iodide is formed. The latter dissolves in benzene together with iodine and the iodides of the other components of the alloy. After evaporation of the benzene solution and treatment of the residue with aqueous... 

Another drawback is met with in the continuous machine when extruding lead alloys containing antimony, tellurium, or other alloying metals. Small quantities of the alloying metals deposit in the screw pitches after a short time of operation which cause an irregular flow of the lead through the die and render the sheathing useless. 

Automobile battery grids employ about 1—3 wt % antimony—lead alloys. Hybrid batteries use low (1.6—2.5 wt %) alloys for the positive grids and nonantimony alloys for the negative grids to give reduced or no water loss. The posts and straps of virtually all lead—acid batteries are made of alloys containing about 3 wt % antimony. 

Anodes. Lead—antimony (6—10 wt %) alloys containing 0.5—1.0 wt % arsenic have been used widely as anodes in copper, nickel, and chromium electrowinning and metal plating processes. Lead—antimony anodes have high strength and develop a corrosion-resistant protective layer of lead dioxide during use. Lead—antimony anodes are resistant to passivation when the current is frequendy intermpted. 

Excellent antifriction properties and good hardness (qv) make lead—antimony—tin alloys suitable for journal bearings. The alloys contain 9—15 wt % antimony and 1—20 wt % tin and may also contain copper and arsenic, which improve compression, fatigue, and creep strength important in bearings. Lead—antimony—tin bearing alloys are Hsted in ASTM B23-92 (7). 

Low (2—5 wt %) antimony, low (2—5 wt %) tin lead alloys are used for automobde body solder. Special lead—antimony alloys containing 1—4 wt % antimony are used for wheel-balancing weights, battery cable clamps, collapsible tubes, and highly machined isotope pots. 

Wrought lead—calcium—tin alloys contain more tin, have higher mechanical strength, exhibit greater stabiUty, and are more creep resistant than the cast alloys. RoUed lead—calcium—tin alloy strip is used to produce automotive battery grids in a continuous process (13). Table 5 Hsts the mechanical properties of roUed lead—calcium—tin alloys, compared with lead—copper and roUed lead—antimony (6 wt %) alloys. 

Dezincification Dezincification is corrosion of a brass alloy containing zinc in which the principal product of corrosion is metallic copper. This may occur as plugs rilling pits (plug type) or as continuous layers surrounding an unattacked core of brass (general type). The mechanism may involve overall corrosion of the alloy followed by redeposition of the copper from the corrosion products or selective corrosion of zinc or a high-zinc phase to leave copper residue. This form of corrosion is commonly encountered in brasses that contain more than 15 percent zinc and can be either eliminated or reduced by the addition ox small amounts of arsenic, antimony, or ph osphorus to the alloy. 

A copper-antimony alloy containing 95 weight% antimony is allowed to cool from 650°C to room temperature. Describe the different phase changes which take place as the alloy is cooled and make labelled sketches of the microstructure to illustrate your answer. 

Sketch a graph of temperature against time for a copper-antimony alloy containing 95 weight% antimony over the range 650°C to 500°C and account for the shape of your plot. 

Thompson and Tracy carried out tests in a moist ammoniacal atmosphere on stressed binary copper alloys containing zinc, phosphorus, arsenic, antimony, silicon, nickel or aluminium. All these elements gave alloys susceptible to stress corrosion. In the case of zinc the breaking time decreased steadily with increase of zinc content, but with most of the other elements there was a minimum in the curve of content of alloying elements against breaking time. In tests carried out at almost 70MN/m these minima occurred with about 0-2% P, 0-2% As, 1% Si, 5% Ni and 1% Al. In most cases cracks were intercrystalline. 

Diecasting alloys containing 70-80% Sn with antimony, copper and lead, either singly or combined. 

A hyper-eutectic alloy containing, say, 50% Sb starts to freeze when the temperature reaches the liquidus line (point a in Fig. 20.39). At this temperature pure pro-eutectic Sb nucleates as the temperature continues to fall, more antimony is deposited from the melt, and the composition of the liquid phase moves down the liquidus line to the eutectic point. When this is reached, the remainder of the melt solidifies. The microstructure of alloys of eutectic composition varies somewhat with alloy system, but generally consists of an aggregate of small particles, often platelets, of one of the phases comprising the eutectic in a continuous matrix of the other phase. Finally, the microstructure of the hypereutectic 50% Sb alloy already mentioned... 

The flame retardant performance of various flame retardant additives in a commercial polycarbonate/ABS alloy were compared. No antimony oxide was required. The data shows brominated phosphate to be a highly efficient flame retardant in this alloy (Table XI). An alloy composition containing 14% brominated phosphate and no antimony oxide gives a V-0 rating (Table XII). The melt index of this alloy containing 12% brominated polystyrene was 7.6 g/10 min. (at 250°C) the equivalent resin containing brominated phosphate had a melt index of 13.3 g/10 min. 

Many tin alloys containing lead, copper, antimony, and bismuth were also in use in Marggrafs time. He mentioned three kinds of unalloyed tin first the Malaga, reputed to be the best, second the English, and third the Saxon and Bohemian (219). 

Lead Alloys. A tellurium—lead alloy containing 0.02—0.1% tellurium, with or without antimony, was introduced in 1934 (81) as tellurium lead or Teledium. This alloy has higher recrystallization temperatures and corrosion resistance and takes a significandy longer time to soften at 25°C after cold work. 

Antimony is a brittle silvery-white metal. Although the unalloyed form of antimony is not often used in industry, alloys of antimony have found wide commercial applications. The integration of antimony gives certain desirable properties, such as increased corrosion resistance and hardness. Moreover, antimony is also the component of some semiconductors such as InSb and InAsi %Sb%. Sb electrodeposits with good adherence were obtained in a water-stable l-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride-tetrafluoroborate ([EMIM]C1-BF4) room-temperature ionicliquid [53]. Furthermore, it was stated that a crystalline InSb compound can be obtained through direct electrodeposition in the ionic liquid [EMIM]C1-BF4 containing In(III) and Sb(III) at 120 °C [54]. It is just a question of time until antimony electrodeposition is reported in the third generation of ionic liquids. 

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