Discovery of tellurium

Tellurium was discovered in 1783 by Franz-Joseph Muller von Reichenstein, an Austrian mining official working in Transylvania, who was studying unusual ores from the gold mines of the region. He concluded that they contained a new metal, but did not at first publish it widely, and in 1798 Martin Heinrich Klaproth confirmed the discovery and gave the element its name from the Latin tellus, meaning Earth. It is a rare, brittle, silvery semimetal found chiefly with gold, silver and copper. Tellurium compounds are used in thin-film solar panels, in rewritable optical discs and as a substance added to steel and copper to improve their workability. Exposure to even small amounts can give the breath a strong garlic-like smell.

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