Antimony
Alloys

Antimony forms a highly useful alloy with lead, increasing its hardness and mechanical strength. When casting it increases fluidity of the melt and reduces shrinkage during cooling. For most applications involving lead, varying amounts of antimony are used as alloying metal. In lead–acid batteries, this addition improves plate strength and charging characteristics. For sailboats, lead keels are used to provide righting moment, ranging from 600 lbs to over 200 tons for the largest sailing superyachts; to improve hardness and tensile strength of the lead keel, antimony is mixed with lead between 2% and 5% by volume. Antimony is used in antifriction alloys (such as Babbitt metal), in bullets and lead shot, electrical cable sheathing, type metal (for example, for linotype printing machines), solder (some " lead-free " solders contain 5% Sb), in pewter, and in hardening alloys with low tin content in the manufacturing of organ pipes.
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