A geothermally powered tin production system includes a geothermal system with a wellbore extending from a surface into an underground magma reservoir. Geothermal energy powers systems and processes used to extract tin from a tin-containing starting material.

The invention relates to a method for concentrating metals, in particular silver and/or tin and/or lead from scrap containing metal, by treating the material/scrap containing silver and/or tin and/or lead with a sulfonic acid of the formula RSO.sub.2OH in the presence of an oxidizing agent, wherein R can be an organic group or ammonia.

A method of separating a metal from a solution comprises adding to the solution a compound having a structure represented by Formula (I): wherein: R.sub.1, R.sub.2, R.sub.3 and R.sub.4 are each independently a substituted or unsubstituted aryl group or a substituted or unsubstituted C1-C8 hydrocarbyl group: and Z is a C2-C6 hydrocarbyl group or an aryl group.

Novel intermetallic materials are provided that are composed of tin and one or more additional metal(s) having a formula M.sub.(1-x)-Sn.sub.5, where 0.1x0.5, with 0.01x0.4 being more preferred and the second metallic element (M) is selected from iron (Fe), copper (Cu), cobalt (Co), nickel (Ni), and a combination of two or more of those metals. Due to low concentration of the second metallic element, the intermetallic compound affords an enhanced capacity applicable for electrochemical cells and may serve as an intermediate phase between Sn and MSn.sub.2. A method of synthesizing these intermetallic materials is also disclosed.

A method of purifying a high specific activity Sn-117m composition is provided that includes extracting an iodide complex of Sn-117m with an organic solvent from an acidic aqueous cadmium solution comprising a dissolved irradiated cadmium target, an acid, and a source of iodide. The organic solvent layer comprising the iodide complex of Sn-117m is substantially reduced in cadmium content. The Sn-117m may be back extracted into an aqueous solution.

The present invention relates to compositions and processes for the extraction of metals from solid material using non-aqueous solvents and oxidisers. The processes and compositions of the present invention are useful for selectively extracting metals from solid material, particularly electronic waste material.

Provided is a method and apparatus for extracting a copper/tin source material from an oxalate of copper and/or tin. The method includes the following steps: (1) approach 1: allowing cupric oxalate and/or stannous oxalate to undergo a chemical reaction with a hypochlorite in a hypochlorite-containing aqueous solution to produce a copper compound-containing and/or tin compound-containing precipitate, which is accompanied by release of carbon dioxide; and/or approach 2: allowing the cupric oxalate and/or the stannous oxalate to undergo a chemical reaction in a solution including an alkaline substance to produce a copper compound-containing and/or tin compound-containing precipitate, where the alkaline substance includes a potassium-containing alkaline substance; and (2) solid-liquid separating to produce a filter residue A and a filtrate B, where the filter residue A is the copper compound-containing and/or tin compound-containing precipitate.

What is provided is a tin recovery method for recovering tin from a tin-containing material, the method including: an oxidation leaching step of performing oxidative leaching of tin in a tin-containing material into a leachate composed of an acidic solution of sulfuric acid to obtain a post-leaching liquid containing tin; an oxidation step of adding a substance that supplies sodium chloride and divalent copper ions to the post-leaching liquid obtained in the oxidation leaching step and oxidizing divalent tin ions contained in the post-leaching liquid to tetravalent tin ions; and a neutralization step of neutralizing the post-leaching liquid after the oxidation step to obtain a tin-containing precipitate.