Talk:Tellurium/Archive 1

Odd Sentence
"But, during WW 2 the germans were able to isolate an unknown isotope known to be shared with gold."

Given the lack of grammar, incorrect scientific information, and lack of a source, I think this sentence should be removed. How could a tellurium isotope be "shared with gold?" Tellurium is too far away from gold for both elements to have an isotope with the same mass number. --24.18.201.157 01:46, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Article change comment
Article changed over to new WikiProject Elements format by maveric149. Elementbox converted 15:44, 5 July 2005 by Femto (previous revision was that of 13:53, 22 June 2005).

Information Sources
Some of the text in this entry was rewritten from Los Alamos National Laboratory - Tellurium. Additional text was taken directly from USGS Tellurium Statistics and Information, from the Elements database 20001107 (via dict.org), Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) (via dict.org) and WordNet (r) 1.7 (via dict.org). Data for the table was obtained from the sources listed on the main page and WikiProject Elements but was reformatted and converted into SI units.

Periodic table videos at youtube
The period table video at youtube says Te is used as an IR optical frequency doubling crystal There are also bing.com references about this  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 169.237.215.179 (talk) 00:52, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Tellurium has a bandgap of about 0.38 eV, which is 3.3 microns, meaning it can double only light longer than 6.7 microns, meaning Te itself is hardly a doubling crystal, probably some compound. Materialscientist (talk) 00:29, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

So is it toxic or not?
The Compounds section says it is not toxic. But the precaution section says it is. Which is it?

well i dunno. sounds like that dude was krazy

Yes, Tellurium is toxic, but only slightly. Much worse thing is with Tellurium side effects -> when body metabolizes Tellurium, it produces volatile compounds of that semimetal which sting awfully.

Borislav Dopudja 10:01, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I have a question...from were do we get it..were do we find it in nature??


 * Tellurium is not mined, per se. However, lots of metal ores (zinc, copper, lead) contain tellurium.  Most of the supply is currently recovered from anode sludge generated during electrolytic refining. Norm Reitzel (talk) 15:56, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Rarity as opposed to Platinum
In the "Occurence" subsection, this article had stated that Tellurium is even rarer in the earth's crust than Platinum, but I checked the table at Abundance of elements in Earth's crust and I noticed that Tellurium is higher (more abundant) on the list there. The source "http://environmentalchemistry.com/yogi/periodic/" credited to Kenneth Barbalace of environmentalchemistry.com (retrieved 2007-4-14) lists it as more abundant by only .002 ppm, whereas the other two sources list it as rarer. However, one of those three cited sources, http://www.webelements.com/periodicity/abundance_crust/ currently (as of November 2009) reports that: "Values for the more rare elements are probably accurate to within an order of magnitude." Given deviations of an order of magnitude or greater also quoted between the sources listed for elements rarer than Platinum, I see no verifiable source in Wikipedia indicating scientific knowledge of the comparable rarity in the Earth's crust between Tellurium and Platinum, let alone actual ranking of the even rarer elements. Changed wording to "With an abundance in the Earth's crust comparable to that of Platinum."

I think this wide deviation in the data found at Abundance of elements in Earth's crust also throws into question the validity of the first sentence of the "Characteristics" subsection, which boldly states that "Tellurium is extremely rare, the ninth rarest metallic element on Earth." What verifiable source states that it is the ninth rarest, as opposed to the eighth or the tenth? A deviation of only .002ppm listed at environmentalchemistry.com is not nearly enough to support the claim. Fulvius (talk) 03:01, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Corrected. Thank you. Materialscientist (talk) 05:03, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Missing info about initiating African wars & human catastrophe
That info seems to be missing; warlords and slaves working in the mines & The West (not always best) buying and paying them for those severe criminal acts. --86.80.117.147 (talk) 18:01, 20 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Aren't you referring to tantalum? Stonemason89 (talk) 18:37, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Prose feedback
Not sure what this means: "Although several gold deposits contain tellurium minerals nearly all the tellurium is isolated in the process of copper and lead production as a by-product." Does this mean that most of the tellurium that we actually use is isolated in copper and lead production? Suggested rewrite: "Although several gold deposits contain tellurium minerals, the main commercial source for tellurium is as a by-product of copper and lead production." or some such. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 18:21, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks and done!--Stone (talk) 20:34, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Pronunciation
Currently only the pronunciation with a bare /l/ is given. Is it worth adding that some dialects retain the /lj/ cluster? 91.107.163.90 (talk) 23:55, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Apuseni Mountains or Zlatna
Somebody changed the article to
 * Tellurium (Latin tellus meaning "earth") was discovered in the 18th century in a gold ore from the Apuseni Mountains mines from Transylvania, in Sacaramb, near Deva, Romania.

from
 * Tellurium (Latin tellus meaning "earth") was discovered in the 18th century in a gold ore from the mines in Zlatna, near what is now Sibiu, Transylvania.

The two places are not the same and now I am confused where this info came from. The facts originally in the text were sourced from various places.--Stone (talk) 18:46, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Nearest neighbours
What is the number of nearest neighbours in crystalline Te at normal temperature or pressure?

83.6.118.232 (talk) 18:58, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Image texture
It looks like the texture (surface) of the tellurium at the image is surface-treated somehow (i.e., not its natural, crystallic appearance). Shouldn't we describe that? As it is, it is intriguing ;-) . -DePiep (talk) 19:42, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

Date of Discovery
In the "History" section, it says that in 1782 this Franz-Joseph Müller von Reichenstein fellow looked at the ore and stated the compound was Bismith Sulphide. It then says he only claimed it was a new element the following year. If that's true, the element would have been discovered in 1783 or so. Meanwhile, the second paragraph (as well as the info template) cites the discovery as happening in 1782. I'm not qualified to say which one is correct (especially considering how much back-referencing between web sources seems to go on these days), but one of these two is wrong and ought to be fixed.--Xanthos IV (talk) 17:16, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Tellurium. Please take a moment to review my edit. You may add after the link to keep me from modifying it, if I keep adding bad data, but formatting bugs should be reported instead. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether, but should be used as a last resort. I made the following changes:
 * Attempted to fix sourcing for http://presolar.wustl.edu/work/noblegas.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 13:37, 31 March 2016 (UTC)