Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Tellurium

DalisAndy - 30-7-2015 at 11:58

Is it practical to try to extract pure tellurium from cds? I have no lab equipment btw

blogfast25 - 30-7-2015 at 12:21

Quote: Originally posted by DalisAndy  
I have no lab equipment btw


You've just answered your own question.

aga - 30-7-2015 at 12:59

Sure it is.

Easy for a 10th Dan Black-Belt Chemist with a fully equipped lab.

Blogfast25 means basically No in your circumstances.

IrC - 30-7-2015 at 14:11

cds? Does that mean compact discs, Al and plastic, no Te, or Cadmium Sulphide, Cd and S, again zero Te. Add zero equipment and the question is, why did you even ask? Fairly pure Te is readily available on fleabay for far less than the cost of the equipment you need/do not have.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/10g-Tellur-Metall-pure-99-99-Telluri...

10 gm 99.99 pure Te for under 8 bucks.

Texium - 30-7-2015 at 14:14

Quote: Originally posted by IrC  
cds? Does that mean compact discs, Al and plastic, no Te, or Cadmium Sulphide, Cd and S, again zero Te. Add zero equipment and the question is, why did you even ask?
Rewritable disks contain a small layer of tellurium (in the form of a tellurium oxide, IIRC). You'd need to destroy a ridiculously large amount of rewritable disks to get a very tiny amount of Te though, assuming you could separate it from everything else in the disk and isolate the pure element in micro scale without it being too lossy. In other words: very impractical, and the lack of lab equipment makes it even more so. You could buy yourself a nice set of decent lab equipment with all the money that you will save by not buying a ton of rewritable disks.

aga - 30-7-2015 at 14:21

SM AutoTranslationBot :-

blogfast25 said: [ethereal: error 14, contact admin]

aga said: [does not compute/irrelevant]

IrC said: Not worth it. No.

zts16 said: hmm, maybe I could, not worth it, so No.

IrC said: Not worth it. No.

[Edited on 30-7-2015 by aga]

IrC - 30-7-2015 at 14:33

Interesting to learn zts, the last time I read about CD's they mentioned Al but failed to cover rewritable's and the use of Te. The reason I like it here so many have a vast store of useful knowledge to convey. Looking at wiki I see "By 1984, the company Panasonic was working on an erasable optical disk drive containing "tellurium monoxide" (really a mixture of Te and TeO2)".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tellurium_monoxide

Still we all agree there is no logic in trying to recover Te from discs. If he is smart he will look at that eBay link if having some Te at low cost is the goal.

diddi - 30-7-2015 at 15:06

One of the other modern uses of Te is in solar panel technology, so you might be lucky to find a dead solar panel somewhere that contains enough Te to actually make the project worth doing. that is after you buy equipment and reagents for your lab you are building. If it is for an element collection... just buy some.

[Edited on 30-7-2015 by diddi]

j_sum1 - 30-7-2015 at 18:29

I'm going to take issue with the "just buy some" philosophy. There are different kinds of element collections.
You might want pure samples -- in which case, buying some would be the way to go.
You might want to show elements as they are commonly used -- in which case put the whole CD in the collection along with a description of where the Te is and how it is used.
You might want to have elements that you have isolated yourself -- in which case, go for it. However, Te would not be your first stop if you are lacking equipment.

My collection is a combination of these. I have nice lumps of silicon but also Si obtained via a thermite from sand. I have lovey graphite specimens. But also graphite rods from a battery, graphite brushes from a motor and both synthetic and natural diamonds. I have no intention of isolating the Am from the smoke detector button that encloses it. I have a lovely radium clock with glowing paint. And although it probably only has a couple more years before the ZnS fully breaks down and it stops glowing, I am not going to try to restore the glow.

As in any collection, focus and prioritise. Extracting Te from a CD is a noble goal and might fit in well with what you want. But be warned, it is probably not trivial.

diddi - 30-7-2015 at 18:42

Just buying is not the only part of my collection either. but for Te, if you want elemental, it is very hard to find. I do have a number of telluride minerals which might be something for a collector to use to represent the tricky ones.

blogfast25 - 30-7-2015 at 18:49

Quote: Originally posted by diddi  
I do have a number of telluride minerals which might be something for a collector to use to represent the tricky ones.


Name names! Which ones? From high Te content (w%) minerals extracting relatively pure Te is probably not that hard.

[Edited on 31-7-2015 by blogfast25]

diddi - 30-7-2015 at 19:00

there are a number of well known tellurides like AgTe etc. have a look in this list I have compiled of minerals element content



Attachment: Minerals.xlsx (116kB)
This file has been downloaded 476 times

violet sin - 30-7-2015 at 22:35

http://www.ebay.com/itm/CERAMIC-SUPPLIES-RARE-EARTHS-Metal-O...

gotta watch out how some sellers package things... I got selenium from this seller ^^^ , paper envelope, with double *cheap* ziplocks and super fine Se inside in that order. one sharp object away from a nightmare. I also still have a few pieces of Te laying around some where I think. no clue when I will be home to look though. been gone working for 2 weeks, and my fam is visiting me on the coast so at least one more week before going home. if the schedule permits, lotta mud work coming up.

https://www.sciencemadness.org/whisper/viewthread.php?tid=30... for reference.

but then again, a few grams for a few bucks of ebay ain't bad and you don't have to wait for some guy to look through his collection :)

Looking for Tellurium Metal?

MercuryTelluride - 4-8-2015 at 09:23

I have some tellurium in ingot and powder form. 99.9% if anyone is interested.:)