Austrian mining engineer · 1742–1825
Franz-Joseph Müller von Reichenstein
Franz-Joseph Müller von Reichenstein discovered tellurium in 1782 in a puzzling gold ore from Transylvania.
How Tellurium was found
Miners in the Zlatna district called a bluish-white ore “problematic gold”, because they could not extract the expected amount of gold from it. Müller studied it for three years and concluded it contained a new metal-like substance, not antimony as others thought.
He sent a sample to Martin Heinrich Klaproth, who confirmed the finding in 1798 and named it tellurium, after tellus, the Latin for Earth.
Life and career
Born 1742 · Died 1825
Müller was born in Nagyszeben, Transylvania (now Sibiu, Romania), studied in Vienna and at the Schemnitz mining academy, and worked as a mining inspector in Transylvania. He was later ennobled as Baron von Reichenstein and held senior posts in Vienna.
Discovered in the same era
Other elements identified within ten years of 1782.