Discovery date : 1789
Discovered by: Martin Heinrich Klaproth
Origin of the name: The name is derived form the Arabic, 'zargun', meaning gold coloured.
Allotropes :
~>ZIRCONIUM is a chemical element with symbol Zr and atomic number 40. The name zirconium is taken from the name of the mineral zircon, the most important source of zirconium.
| FACT BOX | |||
| Group | 5 | Melting point | 1854°C, 3369°F, 2127 K |
| Period | 4 | Boiling point | 4406°C, 7963°F, 4679 K |
| Block | d | Density (g cm−3) | 6.52 |
| Atomic number | 40 | Relative atomic mass | 91.224 |
| State at 20°C | Solid | Key isotopes | 90Zr,92Zr,94Zr |
| Electron configuration | [Kr] 4d25s2 | CAS number | 7440-67-7 |
| ChemSpider ID | 22431 | ChemSpider is a free chemical structure database | |
Gems that contain zirconium were known in ancient times as zircon. In 1789, the German chemist, Martin Klaproth analysed a zircon and separated zirconium in the form of its ‘earth’ zirconia, which is the oxide ZrO2.
Klaproth failed to isolate the pure metal itself, and Humphry Davy also failed when he tried electrolysis in 1808. It was not until 1824 that the element was isolated, when the Swedish chemist Jöns Berzelius heated potassium hexafluorozirconate (K2ZrF6) with potassium metal and obtained some zirconium as a black powder.
Totally pure zirconium was only produced in 1925 by the Dutch chemists Anton Eduard van Arkel and Jan Hendrik de Boer by the decomposition of zirconium tetraiodide (ZrI4). These days the metal is produced in bulk by heating zirconium tetrachloride (ZrCl4) with magnesium.