Vessel made of tin and aluminium (5)
I believe the answer is:
canal
'vessel' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'tin and aluminium' is the wordplay.
'tin' becomes 'can' ('can' can be a synonym of 'tin').
'and' says to put letters next to each other.
'aluminium' becomes 'al' (Al is the chemical symbol for aluminium).
'can'+'al'='CANAL'
'made of' is the link.
(Other definitions for canal that I've seen before include "Passage" , "navigate this?" , "eg Grand Union" , "Man-made strip of water" , "Duct" .)