tellurium
Sign in to saveTellurium is a chemical element; it has the symbol Te and atomic number 52. It is a brittle, mildly toxic, rare, silver-white metalloid. Tellurium is chemically related to selenium and sulfur, all three of which are chalcogens. It is occasionally found in its native form as elemental crystals. Tellurium is far more common in the universe as a whole than on Earth. Its extreme rarity in the Earth's crust, comparable to that of platinum, is due partly to its formation of a volatile hydride that caused tellurium to be lost to space as a gas during the hot nebular formation of Earth.
AI overview
Tellurium is a rare, silver-white metalloid element that is extremely scarce on Earth due to its tendency to escape into space as a gas during our planet's formation. Though uncommon here, tellurium is actually far more abundant throughout the universe and is chemically related to other elements like selenium and sulfur.
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Article
28 sectionsContents
- Characteristics
- Physical properties
- Chemical properties
- Isotopes
- Occurrence
- History
- Production
- Compounds
- Tellurides
- Halides
- Oxocompounds
- Zintl cations
- Organotellurium compounds
- Tritelluride quantum materials
- Applications
- Heterogeneous catalysis
- Niche
- Semiconductor and electronic
- Organotellurium compounds
- Photocathodes
- Thermoelectric material
- Biological role
- Precautions
- See also
- Notes
- References
- Cited sources
- External links
Tellurium is a chemical element; it has the symbol Te and atomic number 52. It is a brittle, mildly toxic, rare, silver-white metalloid. Tellurium is chemically related to selenium and sulfur, all three of which are chalcogens. It is occasionally found in its native form as elemental crystals. Tellurium is far more common in the universe as a whole than on Earth. Its extreme rarity in the Earth's crust, comparable to that of platinum, is due partly to its formation of a volatile hydride that caused tellurium to be lost to space as a gas during the hot nebular formation of Earth.
Tellurium-bearing compounds were first discovered in 1782 in a gold mine in Kleinschlatten, Transylvania (now Zlatna, Romania) by Austrian mineralogist Franz-Joseph Müller von Reichenstein, although it was Martin Heinrich Klaproth who named the new element in 1798 after the Latin 'earth'. Gold telluride minerals are the most notable natural gold compounds. However, they are not a commercially significant source of tellurium itself, which is normally extracted as a by-product of copper and lead production.