Methods of refining of tellurium of technical purity have been developed and introduced. Due to application of oxidative smelting and distillation industrial batches of tellurium were obtained, in which the content of guest impurities meets semiconductor grades.
This article presents outstanding scientists of Russia's first higher technical school – G.V. Plekhanov Leningrad Mining Institute. The authors' attention is drawn to the activities of M.F. Soimonov, A.A. Musin-Pushkin, N.A. Lvov, V.V.Kapnist, A.N.Olenin, D.I. Khvostov, G.R. Derzhavin, I.I. Chemnitzer and other people who studied or worked at the Mining Institute, patronized the first technical university of Russia or simply knew the graduates of the Mining School. In a lively form, the authors tell about outstanding figures of Russian history of the 18th - early 19th century, associated with the Mining Institute, who took part in the scientific and cultural life of Russia at that time.
