Tracing the global tin flow network: highly concentrated production and consumption
Graphical abstract
Introduction
Tin was first used as bronze in 3500 B.C.E, but the pure metal was not used until about 600 B.C.E. (USGS, 2019). Nowadays, tin has become an indispensable material in the development of modern industry and technology. Simultaneously, the scope of tin's application has been constantly enlarging, having been extended from traditional use for solders, tin plate, chemicals, brass & bronze, and float glass to batteries, solar PVs, thermoelectric materials, hydrogen generation, carbon capture catalysts, water treatment, etc. (ITA, 2018).
Global refined tin consumption reached 381 Gg in 2017 (CNMIA, 2018), and is anticipated to increase in the coming years, largely because of the use of tin in high technology (ITA, 2018); consumption is estimated to be over 400 Gg by 2025 (ITA, 2019). It has been noted that global tin reserves are predicted to have a static lifetime of only 22 years (Izard and Müller, 2010). However, few reports or data regarding these issues and the associated global tin flow network are available or complete, in current literatures (Zhang, 2019; Zhang et al., 2014). Zhang (2019), for example, introduced the issue of global tin flow only from a macroscopic perspective, and specific data for tin flow were unavailable. Zhang et al. (2014) only analyzed partial data in some countries, without establishing any complete tin flow network. Neither has the supply-and-demand pattern of global tin resources been clarified in current literatures as well (Zhang, 2019; Zhang et al., 2014). Therefore, it is highly important to trace the global tin flow network, from production to consumption, to fill the above-mentioned knowledge gaps, as the security and sustainability of tin resources are matters that affect the development of the global economy and society.
Material flow analysis (MFA) is a systematic analysis tool for tracing the flows and stocks of material within a given temporal and spatial boundary. MFA has been extensively applied in studies on the global and national material flows of lithium, lead, copper, tungsten, aluminum, etc. (Chen et al., 2016a, 2016b; Lopez et al., 2015; Sun et al., 2017; Tang et al., 2020). And the analysis of material flow is conducive to the execution of precautionary measures for resource production and recycling (Barrett and Scott, 2012; Lenzen et al., 2012). The physical trade balance (PTB) has been widely used as an approach to estimate resource flows (e.g., oil, steel) between countries to identify the dominant suppliers and consumers (Dittrich and Bringezu, 2010; Muñoz et al., 2009; Xu and Zhang, 2007).
Furthermore, the importance of metals to an economy and the development of human society has been greatly emphasized (Graedel and Cao, 2010; Chen et al., 2016a; Harper et al., 2015), and many studies have indicated a significant correlation between metal use and gross domestic product (GDP) (Crompton, 2015; Steinberger et al., 2010; Zheng et al., 2018), or per capita GDP (Graedel and Cao, 2010). Zheng et al., al.(2018) reported that a 1 percent growth in GDP contributed to a 1.9 percent rise in a country's metal footprint in the year before GDP/capita reached a peak value of 15,000 US$ (Zheng et al., 2018). The last two decades have witnessed a rapid growth in global GDP/capita (WB, 2019), and refined tin consumption thus increased by over 50% from 1999 to 2017 (CNMIA, 2018). Increased consumption has led to a rapid decline of tin reserves, from 7700 Gg (1999) to 4800 Gg (2017). Under these circumstances, it is essential to understand the relationship between the economy and current consumption patterns (or supply and demand) of global tin, because tin will be of great significance to the future development of any economy and the sustainable utilization of tin resources is essential.
Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify the distribution of tin reserves, explain the evolution of tin production and consumption, and elucidate the tin flow between countries during 1999 to 2018, in order to provide policy makers a basis for improving the current policies and measures for tin resource management and development. The main findings presented in this article are essential for carrying out further study on the prospects for tin supply (production) and demand (consumption), which in turn will provide a reference for the sustainable development and utilization of global tin resources.
Section snippets
System boundary
The system boundary of this study consists of both spatial and temporal boundaries. Regarding the spatial boundary (Sun et al., 2017, 2018, 2019), global tin production and consumption are highly localized. For this reason, nine countries (Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Peru, and Thailand) contributing at least 90% of global tin production and ten countries (United States, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, Singapore, and Spain)
Global tin flow network: uneven supply-and-demand patterns
Over the past two decades, the global tin flow network has been characterized by an uneven supply-and-demand pattern. An overview of the global tin flow network is shown in Fig. 1. Regarding global tin mining and production, China, Indonesia, Brazil, Malaysia, Bolivia, and Australia have dominated the global mining production; and China, Indonesia, Peru, Brazil, Malaysia, Bolivia, and Thailand have dominated the global refined tin production. Myanmar was identified as a Black Swan in the tin
Conclusions
This study investigated the global tin flow network over the last two decades, and the following conclusions can be drawn:
First, the geographical distribution of tin reserves is restricted to a few localities, resulting in a high concentration of mine production and refined tin production in a small number of countries. Global tin reserves are located mainly in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and East Asia (mainly in China), and nine countries—— Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Peru, Brazil,
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Haodong Li: Investigation, Formal analysis, Visualization, Writing – original draft. Wenqing Qin: Supervision, Funding acquisition, Writing – review & editing. Jinhui Li: Conceptualization, Methodology. Zuyuan Tian: Investigation, Formal analysis. Fen Jiao: Visualization, Writing – review & editing. Congren Yang: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – review & editing, Data curtion.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
This research was funded by Key Laboratory of Hunan Province for Clean and Efficient Utilization of Strategic Calcium-containing Mineral Resources (Grant no. 2018TP1002), and Co-Innovation Centre for Clean and Efficient Utilization of Strategic Metal Mineral Resources.
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