Tin
Tin as an element is not likely to make you sick, unless you consume extremely high levels or some organic tin compounds (not the kind you get from tin cans). Safe Home offers a few kits that provide drinking water testing for tin in city or well water supplies.
Parameter Type: Drinking Water Testing for Metals
Parameter Name: Tin
What it is and Where it Comes From:
Tin is in the Periodic Table and has an atomic number of 50 with the symbol Sn. Tin is a silvery metal that characteristically has a faint yellow hue. Tin is used for coating steel cans. Tin oxide is used by dental offices to polish teeth and other restorative procedures. Tin is resistant to corrosion. Tin can also be found in food containers and toothpaste products. Tin is present in the air, water, soil, and landfills and is a normal part of many plants and animals that live on land and in water. Tin is also present in the tissues of your body. There is no evidence that tin is an essential element for humans. Drinking water testing gives you several benefits like peace of mind, identifying contaminants in your water, and insight into health concerns. Safe Home offers Laboratory drinking water testing kits for tin, allowing you to collect your water sample and ship it directly to our EPA-Certified Laboratory. This platform of drinking water testing for tin will give you an accurate level based on the lowest level of a parameter our instruments can detect (Method Detection Level). Safe Home drinking water testing for metals can be used for city and well water supplies. Drinking water testing should be done any time you notice a significant change in your water quality.
Health Effects:
Studies have shown that humans who swallowed large amounts of inorganic tin in research studies suffered stomachaches, anemia, and liver and kidney problems. Studies with inorganic tin in animals have shown similar effects to those observed in humans. There is no evidence that inorganic tin compounds affect reproductive functions, produce birth defects, or cause genetic changes. Inorganic tin compounds are not known to cause cancer. There are no studies on health effects in children exposed to tin compounds. However, it is reasonable to assume that children would exhibit the same type of health effects observed in exposed adults. We do not know whether children are more susceptible to the effects of exposure to tin and tin compounds than adults. There are no reports of adverse developmental effects in humans exposed to tin or its compounds, or of inorganic tin in animals. Studies in animals have shown that organotin compounds can cross the placenta and reach the fetus.
Solutions to Contaminant Levels:
After drinking water testing, how can I resolve the issue? Reverse Osmosis is commonly used for the removal/reducing of heavy metals like tin from water. Methods for removal of some trace amounts of toxic metals include distillation, ion exchange, reverse osmosis, and activated carbon filtration. Distillation is one of the oldest water treatment processes. Water is boiled and the resulting steam is collected and cooled backed to water in a separate chamber. The treated water thus produced is called distilled water that is relatively free of many contaminants. Ion exchange is a water treatment method where one or more undesirable ionic contaminants are removed from water by exchange with another non-objectionable, or less objectionable ionic substance. Both the contaminant and the exchanged substance must be dissolved and have the same type of electrical charge (positive or negative). A typical example of ion exchange is a process called “water softening” aiming to reduce calcium and magnesium content. Nevertheless, ion exchange is efficient in removing toxic metals from water. Reverse osmosis is a process that removes foreign contaminants, solid substances, large molecules, and minerals from water by using pressure to push it through specialized membranes. Here’s how reverse osmosis works. Unlike osmosis, which is a passive process, reverse osmosis requires external force (pressure) to work. Pressure is applied to a highly concentrated solute solution, such as salt water, to pass through a membrane to a lower concentrate solution. The membrane allows water to flow through but blocks out larger molecules, like contaminants. The reverse osmosis process leaves higher concentrations of solute on one side and only the solvent, or freshwater, on the other. Carbon filtering is a method of filtering that uses a bed of activated carbon to remove impurities from a fluid using adsorption. Who do I need to contact to find out more information about water quality in my area? Every community water supplier must provide an annual report to its customers, known as a Consumer Confidence Report (CCR). The report provides information on your local drinking water quality, including the water’s source, contaminants found in the water, and how consumers can get involved in protecting drinking water. How often does the local public water system preform drinking water testing? Frequency of drinking water testing depends on the number of people served, the type of water source, and types of contaminants. Certain contaminants are tested more frequently than others, as established by the Safe Drinking Water Act. You can find out about levels of regulated contaminants in your treated water for the previous calendar year in your annual Consumer Confidence Report (CCR).