Antimony

Antimony is a silver-gray, brittle semi-metal that has the symbol Sb. This metalloid has four allotropic forms. The stable form is a blue-white metal. Yellow and black antimony are unstable non-metals.
Antimony rarely occurs in nature as a native element, but is found in a number of different minerals. Of these minerals, only stibnite (SbS3) is mined commercially as a source for metallic antimony.
The most important use of antimony is for the manufacture of flame-proofing compounds. Antimony is widely used to impregnate plastics, textiles, rubber and other materials. These flame-retardant applications include such markets as children's clothing, toys, aircraft and automobile seat covers.
A portion of the consumption is in antimony alloys. Antimony is mixed with other metals, such as lead, to make the lead harder and stronger for use in storage batteries.
Antimony is also used in cable sheating, in collapsible tubes and foil, in medicines, in ceramics enamels, in pottery, in sheet and pipes, in fireworks, for pigments in plastics, paints, rubber, and in the semiconductor industry (in the production of diodes, infrared detectors, and hall-effect devices for example).


Links:
-World Bureau of Metal Statistics - Statistics 2000 - 2003
-IAOIA-The International Antimony Oxide Industry Association




Antimony Production
Thousand Tonnes