ABSTRACT
This chapter conveys a feeling for the standards the chemist uses to judge the array of information concerning organotin substances which can be assembled in the modern laboratory. Organotins became a leading commercial organometallic first through their use in polyvinylchloride stabilization, and now as biocides, where their success is based upon their extremely high performance/unit-weight ratio, and their degradation by chemical action into nontoxic inorganic tin compounds. Organotin compounds are particularly illustrative of the use of these ancillary spectroscopic methods because of the particular properties of the tin atom. The chemical synthesis or extraction from sources must be followed by separation and isolation of the material which is then subject to purification. Standard tests for purity include narrow melting or boiling range, and spectroscopic or chromatographic analysis for impurities, side products of syntheses, extraneous solvent, etc. The steroids are a class of structurally related natural products found in plants and animals.
