Tin of protons. It has two main allotropes: at room temperature, the stable allotrope is β-tin, a silvery-white, malleable metal, but at low temperatures it transforms into the less dense grey α-tin, which has the diamond cubic structure. Metallic tin does not easily oxidize in air. The first tin alloy used on a large scale was bronze, made of tin and copper, from as early as 3000 BC. After 600 BC, pure metallic tin was produced. Pewter, which is an alloy of 85–90% tin with the remainder commonly consisting of copper, antimony, and lead, was used for flatware from the Bronze
Tin(II) chloride to maintain the equilibrium towards the left-hand side (using Le Chatelier's principle). Solutions of SnCl are also unstable towards oxidation by the air: This can be prevented by storing the solution over lumps of tin metal. There are many such cases where tin(II) chloride acts as a reducing agent, reducing silver and gold salts to the metal, and iron(III) salts to iron(II), for example: It also reduces copper(II) to copper(I). Solutions of tin(II) chloride can also serve simply as a source of Sn ions, which can form other tin(II) compounds via precipitation reactions. For example, reaction with sodium sulfide produces