Period 5 element corrosion-resistant tin plating of steel. Because of its low toxicity, tin-plated metal is also used for food packaging, giving the name to tin cans, which are made mostly of steel. Antimony () is a toxic chemical element with the symbol Sb and an atomic number of 51. A lustrous grey metalloid, it is found in nature mainly as the sulfide mineral stibnite (SbS). Antimony compounds have been known since ancient times and were used for cosmetics, metallic antimony was also known but mostly identified as lead. For some time China has been the largest producer of antimony and its compounds,
Chemical element the elements, including consideration of their general physical and chemical properties, their states of matter under familiar conditions, their melting and boiling points, their densities, their crystal structures as solids, and their origins. Several terms are commonly used to characterize the general physical and chemical properties of the chemical elements. A first distinction is between metals, which readily conduct electricity, nonmetals, which do not, and a small group, (the "metalloids"), having intermediate properties and often behaving as semiconductors. A more refined classification is often shown in colored presentations of the periodic table. This system restricts the terms "metal" and "nonmetal"