Klaproth, who had earlier isolated it from the mineral calaverite. In the early 1920s, Thomas Midgley Jr. found tellurium prevented engine knocking when added to fuel, but ruled it out due to the difficult-to-eradicate smell. Midgley went on to discover and popularize the use of tetraethyl lead. The 1960s brought an increase in thermoelectric applications for tellurium (as bismuth telluride), and in free-machining steel alloys, which became the dominant use. These applications were overtaken by the growing importance of CdTe in thin-film solar cells in the 2000s. Production Most Te (and Se) is obtained from porphyry copper deposits, where it occurs in trace amounts. The element is recovered from anode sludges from the electrolytic refining of blister copper. It is a component of dusts from blast furnace refining of lead. Treatment of 1000 tons of copper ore yields approximately of tellurium. The anode sludges contain the selenides and tellurides of the noble metals in compounds with the formula M2Se or M2Te (M = Cu, Ag, Au). At temperatures of 500 °C the anode sludges are roasted with sodium carbonate under air. The metal ions are reduced to the metals, while the telluride is converted to sodium tellurite. Tellurites can be leached from the mixture with water and are normally present as hydrotellurites HTeO3− in solution. Selenites are also formed during this process, but they can be separated by adding sulfuric acid. The hydrotellurites are converted into the insoluble tellurium dioxide while the selenites stay in solution. The metal is produced from the oxide (reduced) either by electrolysis or by reacting the tellurium dioxide with sulfur dioxide in sulfuric acid. Commercial-grade tellurium is usually marketed as 200-mesh powder but is also available as slabs, ingots, sticks, or lumps. The year-end price for tellurium in 2000 was US$30 per kilogram. In recent years, the tellurium price was driven up by increased demand and limited supply, reaching as high as US$220 per pound in 2006. The average annual price for 99.99%-pure tellurium increased from $38 per kilogram in 2017 to $74 per kilogram in 2018. Despite the expectation that improved production methods will double production, the United States Department of Energy (DoE) anticipates a supply shortfall of tellurium by 2025. In the 2020s, China produced ca. 50% of world's tellurium and was the only country that mined Te as the main target rather than a by-product. This dominance was driven by the rapid