Zone-melting process provides a great amount of knowledge about parameters governing the process of optimal purification for tellurium, especially the effective segregation coefficients K-eff. A series of 13 values of K-eff were determined after one pass n = 1 and one molten zone N = 1 at the same conditions of temperature T and interface velocity V. These values are used to extract a mathematical model of the distribution concentration Psi 3 (x) = C-s/C-o for n = 1 and N = 3, treated 13 times for 13 impurities. After 3 passes of tellurium molten zone, a decrease of the concentration of the residual impurities concentrations was registered, and a better fitting between experimental points C-s/C-o with the extracted theoretical model was also observed. Besides, the effect of high conductivity of liquid tellurium was studied; leading to a decrease of the driving forces, therefore the ultimate distribution was enhanced. Under our experimental conditions, we propose N = 3 as maximum number of molten zones needed to achieve an ultimate purification of tellurium with good efficiency. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.