How to reduce tin?

[ldanielrosa]

TL;DR

I want to use a waste stream from another process to do things with tin

While reclaiming silver from scrap, I see that I will have plenty of copper nitrate as a waste stream. I've found some material on reclaiming this at . I see that this will convert it to copper sulfate as an intermediate step. I would like to divert some of this to dissolve tin from scrap pewter.

Once I have tin in solution, I would like to reduce it as fairly fine particles. Will ascorbic acid do the job on tin that it does on copper and silver? I would like to use a process similar to . I'm concerned that simple displacement with iron or aluminum will make particles that are too coarse and irregular. If ascorbic acid will not reduce tin, is there a relatively cheap and low toxicity agent that will?

 

[Mayhem]

Tin(ii) is harder to reduce than Cu(ii) and Ag(i).

Oxalic acid / oxalates may be a suitable alternative to ascorbic acid. While a weaker reducing agent in terms of standard potential (if memory serve), the release of CO₂
may drive the reaction by displacing any equilibrium, especially if heated.