Typical commercial tin/silver alloys contain between 3% and 5% silver, it was developed as an alternative to lead-containing solders. Our product is a Tin-silver alloy solder, which is used for high temperature, high reliability interconnect applications. Solder joints using Tin/Silver alloys maintain better high temperature strength then tin/lead solders. It also has the characteristics of non-toxicity and corrosion resistance. The product are always used in welding of components in the electrical instrument industry, as well as the sealing of automobile radiators, heat exchangers, food and beverage containers, etc.

Figure 1. Historic Overview of the Development of Solder Materials

Before the end of the 19th century, the only welding process was the metal forge welding that blacksmiths had used for hundreds of years. The earliest modern welding technology appeared at the end of the 19th century, first arc welding and oxygen gas welding, and later resistance welding. The first case of resistance welding dates back to 1856. James Joule successfully melted and welded a bundle of copper wires by the resistance heating method. In 1887, resistance welding was invented by Thomson of the United States and applied to seam welding and spot welding of thin plates; Around 1900, Edmund Fouche and Charles Picard built the first welding torch, which is still used in the welding of railway tracks. In the 1920s, because of the appearance of the flash butt welding method for welding bar and chain, resistance welding entered the practical stage. The second important stage of development occurred in the third industrial revolution in the 1940s and 1950s. During this stage, breakthroughs were made in the fields of energy, microelectronics, and aerospace technology, which promoted the development of welding technology. After 1950, it became another period of rapid development of welding methods. At this stage, welding workers in various countries developed many new welding methods. After the 21st century, with the rapid development of microelectronics technology, solder is more widely used in chip and other fields. At the same time, the scientific community has put forward the concept of green science. Gold-silver alloy solder has been widely recognized by the scientific community under the dual concept, has been used until now, and is constantly innovating and developing.

The recycle of tin is widely used in tin industry, is a low costing process in tin product manufacture and also approach a high using efficiency of tin. As far as the developed countries, the amount of regenerated tin reaches about 40% of the original tin production.

The simple recycle process of tin in industry is firstly acid leaching and followed by electrolysis.[1]

                                  Figure 1. Acid Leaching and Electrolysis Process

                  Figure 2. The Detail of Electrolysis Process 

There are also developed process to recycle tin. Such as adopting new electrolyte composition containing sulfuric acid and bivalent copper ion, adjust working temperature to 50-90℃, electrolytic current to 50-100 A/m and electrolyte circulation speed to 25-30 L/min. The method has the advantages of simple process, the energy consumption is small, and the metal recovery is high, up to 96%. Thus, this process might have the opportunity to be applied in further recycle industry.[2]

References

[1] Journal of Hazardous Materials, 2016. Contents volume 304. 304, pp.409-416.

[2] HUANG Xingguo. A method of tin recovery: CN 102002594 A[P].