Antimony group 15 of the periodic table, one of the elements called pnictogens, and has an electronegativity of 2.05. In accordance with periodic trends, it is more electronegative than tin or bismuth, and less electronegative than tellurium or arsenic. Antimony is stable in air at room temperature, but reacts with oxygen if heated to produce antimony trioxide, SbO. Antimony is a silvery, lustrous gray metalloid with a Mohs scale hardness of 3, which is too soft to make hard objects; coins of antimony were issued in China's Guizhou province in 1931 but the durability was poor and the minting was soon
Minor metals 40 percent of all production, but that China's share of global production increased 34 percent between 2000 and 2009. Minor metals are used in a wide diversity of end-use applications, from capacitors for consumer electronics (tantalum) and metallic cathodes for rechargeable batteries (cobalt) to photovoltaic solar cells (silicon) and semiconductor materials (gallium and indium).The primary end-uses of minor metals can also help to categorize the metals into four groups: Metals often classified as minor metals include: Antimony (Sb), Arsenic (As), Beryllium (Be), Bismuth (Bi), Cadmium (Cd), Cerium (Ce), Chromium (Cr), Cobalt (Co), Gadolinium (Gd), Gallium (Ga), Germanium (Ge), Hafnium (Hf),