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Caroline Sueper

Professor Mark Leatherman

Chemistry 101

2 April 2021

Tellurium; An Extraordinarily Rare Element

Tellurium is one of the rarest elements on Earth, even more uncommon than rare earth

elements. An average rock contains only about 3 parts per billion of tellurium (Goldfard)! It is

extremely difficult to find in its native form and is more likely found with minerals such as gold,

silver, or platinum. The most common form of tellurium found is calaverite or gold telluride,

AuTe2, which is very impressive since gold is a wildly picky element that doesn’t like to

combine with hardly any other elements (Staff). As a matter of fact, tellurium was discovered in

1782 by Franz Joseph Müller von Reichenstein in a gold ore in Sibiu, Romania (Royal Society of

Chemistry). The name Tellurium comes from the root “tellus” in Latin, meaning fruit of the

Earth (Goldfard).

Tellurium is a metalloid that is part of group 6A (or Group 16), also known as the

Chalcogens, on the periodic table. While tellurium isn’t super cheap at $37.60 per kilogram, it

offers incredible benefits in the modern industrial world (Garside). It contains key features of

both metals and non-metals and has some interesting properties when combined with other alloys

for machinability. When steel is combined with tellurium, it is more apt to respond to bending,

cutting, or manipulating the shape of the metal in some way than without tellurium. Adding even

a minute amount of 0.04% tellurium to steel makes working with it much less cumbersome

(“Tellurium”). Adding tellurium to lead reduces corrosion from sulfuric acid and contributes to

added strength and hardness, as well (Los Alamos National Laboratory). When copper reacts
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with tellurium, its own electrical conductivity is enhanced and strengthened (“Tellurium”).

While tellurium is usually produced more in combinations with steel and lead, it simply would

not be possible to use as much tellurium as we do without copper. Most of the tellurium we have

access to in the world is a byproduct of mining porphyry copper deposits. As a matter of fact, it

takes 550 tons of copper to be refined to produce a mere one pound of tellurium (Colwell)! If we

didn’t have tellurium around, we would have to find different elements to utilize in solar cells,

photoreceptors, thermoelectric devices, laser diodes, integrated circuits, and as you’ll find out

later, medical instruments (Colwell). It is quite handy that we only need tiny amounts of

tellurium, in conjunction with other elements, to reap the benefits of its strength.

Tellurium’s atomic number is 52 and contains 52 protons, 52 electrons, and 76 neutrons.

The atomic mass is 127.6 amu with an atomic symbol of Te. It is most definitely a solid at room

temperature and holds a relatively lightweight density of 6.24 g/cm3. It has a reasonably low

boiling point of 989.8°C and melting point of 449.5°C, which puts it in the top third of elements,

with the other two-thirds having steeper boiling and melting points (Power). While tellurium is

quite rare, it is most commonly found in a few compounds including tellurium tetrachloride

(TeCl4), tellurium dichloride (TeCl2), and tellurium trioxide (TeO3) (Thomas Jefferson National

Accelerator Facility - Office of Science Education). Tellurium can vary in color and other

properties as seen below in the images, but raw tellurium appears as a metallic metalloid that is

quite brittle. It is sensibly reactive with an electronegativity of 2.1 on the Pauling scale and an

atomic radius of 206 pm (Van der Waals) (Los Alamos National Laboratory). Tellurium has a

heat capacity of 0.2 J/g K, a latent heat of fusion of 17.49 kJ/mol, and a latent heat of

vaporization of 52.55 kJ/mol (Power).

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Tellurium Tetrachloride Tellurium Dichloride

(“Tellurium Tetrachloride”) (American Elements)

Raw Tellurium
Tellurium Trioxide

(Wothers) (Tellurium Trioxide - 10g)

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Tellurium has a short-hand electron configuration of [Kr] 5s24d105p4 and a long-hand

electron configuration of 1s22s22p63s23p64s23d104p65s24d105p4. Tellurium’s first ionization energy

level is measured in at 9.0096 eV and has a few known naturally occurring isotopes (Power).

There are several radioisotopes as well, but I have not included them in this paper because of

how many there are. Below is a table that lists the stable isotopes of tellurium and their

associated masses and natural abundances. Many of these isotopes are utilized in the medical

industry for imaging; Te-120 and Te-124 are used as PET and Beta emitting isotopes, Te-122 is

used in gamma imaging, Te-123 is utilized in thyroid imaging machines, and Te-130 is used to

research double Beta decay (Winter). While these isotopes are very important for some of our

technology, they only account for about 33% of all of tellurium that has been found on Earth so

far (Soft Schools).

Natural abundance (atom

Isotope Mass / Da
%)
120
Te 119.904048 (21) 0.09 (1)
122
Te 121.903050 (3) 2.55 (12)
123
Te 122.9042710 (22) 0.89 (3)
124
Te 123.9028180 (18) 4.74 (14)
125
Te 124.9044285 (25) 7.07 (15)
126
Te 125.9033095 (25) 18.84 (25)
128
Te 127.904463 (4) 31.74 (8)
130
Te 129.906229 (5) 34.08 (62)

(Table from Mark Winter)

Outside of its isotopes, tellurium can be found as crystalline or amorphous allotropes.

Crystalline tellurium is silvery-white and is quite lustrous and brittle, much like tellurium in its
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raw form. Amorphous tellurium, on the other hand, is only created by precipitating tellurium

from a solution of telluric or tellurous acid (Los Alamos National Laboratory). There are only a

few different formulas I could find that produce raw tellurium as a product, given its rarity. One

of them is the chemical breakdown of calaverite: AuTe2  Au + 2Te. The second equation I

found is tellurium (IV) oxide reacting with sulfur dioxide and water: TeO2 + 2SO2 + 2H2O → Te

+ 2H2SO4. The final equation is the breakdown of tellurium dioxide (TeO2) with the use of an

electrical current: TeO2  Te + O2 (“Tellurium”). Again, it is quite tricky to get your hands on

raw tellurium and it requires a lot of work to get a minute amount of it.

While tellurium is not listed as hazardous, handling it should still be done with care. It is

suggested that it might be toxic to the body and even produces “tellurium breath,” which smells

like garlic, when someone is exposed to even just 0.01 mg/m3 of it in the air (Los Alamos

National Laboratory). If ingested or exposed to the body, a simple rinse with water should do the

trick. If a sample of tellurium needs to be extinguished, it should be done so with a Class D dry

powder extinguishing agent and not water (Metals). If it were to burn, however, it would produce

a pale green colored flame (Barthelmy). Tellurium is safest in a cool, dry, well-ventilated area

and should be kept away from heat sources to avoid fumes or dust forming.

As it turns out, I didn’t expect there to be an element that is even more rare than the

lanthanides. It was shocking how challenging it was to find pertinent information regarding

tellurium and I suspect this is because we use so little of it commercially, let alone individually.

Overall, though, it seems to be a pretty cool element. It complements other metals and their

properties well to form an even better product at the end of the day. Plus, it reacts with gold. You

have to be pretty regal to be interacting with a fancy element like gold! That’s something so

unique that I’ll never be able to forget it.

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Advertisement

Atomic #52 Mass 127.6

Te
Tellurium

Cost $37.60 kg

I just want to combine with copper so that we can be

CuTe* together!

*Cu2Te is the proper formula Caroline Sueper

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Works Cited

American Elements. “Tellurium Dichloride.” American Elements, 13 June 2017,

www.americanelements.com/tellurium-dichloride-10025-71-5. 

Barthelmy, Dave. Flame Tests, Brush & Penfield,

webmineral.com/help/FlameTest.shtml#.YGjvrS1h1qs. 

Colwell, Brian. “20 Interesting Facts About Tellurium.” Brian D. Colwell, 1 Feb. 2020,

briandcolwell.com/20-interesting-facts-about-tellurium/. 

Garside, M. “Tellurium Price U.S. 2016.” Statista, 1 July 2020,

www.statista.com/statistics/731456/tellurium-price-in-the-united-states/. 

Goldfard, Richard. “Tellurium - The Bright Future of Solar Energy.” USGS: Science for a

Changing World, pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2014/3077/pdf/fs2014-3077.pdf. 

Los Alamos National Laboratory. Periodic Table of Elements: Los Alamos National Laboratory,

periodic.lanl.gov/52.shtml. 

Metals, ESPI. Tellurium, July 2015, www.espimetals.com/index.php/msds/285-Tellurium. 

Power, Nuclear. “Tellurium - Specific Heat, Latent Heat of Fusion, Latent Heat of

Vaporization.” Nuclear Power, 19 Dec. 2019, www.nuclear-power.net/tellurium-specific-

heat-latent-heat-vaporization-fusion/. 

Royal Society of Chemistry. “Tellurium - Element Information, Properties and Uses: Periodic

Table.” Tellurium - Element Information, Properties and Uses | Periodic Table,

www.rsc.org/periodic-table/element/52/tellurium. 

Soft Schools. “Tellurium Facts.” Soft Schools,

www.softschools.com/facts/periodic_table/tellurium_facts/228/. 
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Staff, Live Science. “Facts About Tellurium.” LiveScience, Purch, 12 June 2013,

www.livescience.com/37396-tellurium.html. 

“Tellurium Tetrachloride.” JiNan Vican Chemicals, www.vicanchem.com/product/tellurium-

tetrachloride/. 

Tellurium Trioxide - 10g, onyxmet.com/index.php?route=product

%2Fproduct&product_id=2310. 

“Tellurium.” Chemistry Explained, Adameg, 2021, www.chemistryexplained.com/elements/P-

T/Tellurium.html. 

Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility - Office of Science Education. “It's

Elemental.” It's Elemental - The Element Tellurium,

education.jlab.org/itselemental/ele052.html. 

Winter, Mark. “Tellurium: Isotope Data.” WebElements Periodic Table " Tellurium " Isotope

Data, University of Sheffield and WebElements Ltd,

www.webelements.com/tellurium/isotopes.html. 

Wothers, Peter. “Tellurium.” Chemistry World, 23 July 2008,

www.chemistryworld.com/podcasts/tellurium/3005967.article.