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Energy Markets’ Risks
Published in Anco S. Blazev, Global Energy Market Trends, 2021
Tellurium is used mostly in making steel and copper alloys to improve machinability, in the petroleum and rubber industries, and for making catalysts and some chemicals. One of the rarest elements in the Earth’s crust, it is found in considerable quantities as a secondary metal in mining operations.
st Century
Published in Anco S. Blazev, Solar Technologies for the 21st Century, 2021
Tellurium is used mostly in making steel and copper alloys to improve machinability, in the petroleum and rubber industries, and for making catalysts and some chemicals. One of the rarest elements in the Earth’s crust, it is found in considerable quantities as a secondary metal in mining operations.
The Environment Today
Published in Anco S. Blazev, Power Generation and the Environment, 2021
Tellurium compounds are highly toxic and teratogenic (causative of birth defects); exposure can also cause intensely bad breath and body odors, and in higher doses can cause chronic effects to the liver and acute effects to the digestive tract, such as nausea and constipation.
Leaching kinetics of tellurium-bearing materials in alkaline sulfide solutions
Published in Mineral Processing and Extractive Metallurgy Review, 2020
Zhipeng Xu, Xueyi Guo, Dong Li, Qinghua Tian
Tellurium (Te) is a rare metalloid with relatively low abundance in the earth’s crust (0.001–0.005 g/t) (Mandal et al. 2004; Kavlak and Graedel 2013), which is found in copper ores, as well as, associated with gold and silver in minerals, such as calaverite (AuTe2) and silvanite (AgAuTe4) (Moscoso-Pérez et al. 2004; Matusiewicz and Krawczyk 2007). Incorporating Te in alloys of copper, steel, lead, and rubber can obviously increase the stability of these materials from corrosion (Akasawa et al. 2003; Emsley 2011; Held and Ilg 2011). Furthermore, Te is the most important raw material for CdTe thin-film photovoltaic cells, which is one of the most promising thin-film solar cells commercially available (Bhandari et al. 2015).
Future of photovoltaic materials with emphasis on resource availability, economic geology, criticality, and market size/growth
Published in CIM Journal, 2023
G. J. Simandl, S. Paradis, L. Simandl
Tellurium is a silver-white metalloid with the atomic number 52. It belongs to group 16 of the periodic table. It has similar chemical properties to Se and S, two adjacent elements within the same group. The Te content of the continental crust is estimated at 0.027 ppm (Hu & Gao, 2008). Relative to Se and As, Te is considered to be mildly toxic. For in-depth reviews of toxicity and potential impacts on the environment, see Jabłońska-Czapla and Grygoyć (2021) and Nkuissi et al. (2020).
Impact of Contamination with Tellurium on Biological Properties of Ordinary Chernozem
Published in Soil and Sediment Contamination: An International Journal, 2019
Contamination of ordinary chernozem with tellurium impairs its biological properties: there is decrease in bacterial count in soil, abundance of Azotobacter, catalase activity, dehydrogenase activity, germinating capacity of radish seeds. No stimulating action (hormesis) of tellurium on biological properties of ordinary chernozem has been detected. This evidences of high toxicity of tellurium.