Zirconium

Zirconium has a small nuclear cross-section (slows down radiation), making it useful in cladding nuclear reactor fuel elements.   Since zirconium is resistant to acid, alkali, and sea water corrosion, it is used for containers and piping in the chemical industry .   It is also used as a getter (absorbs unwanted gases) in vacuum tubes, an alloying agent in iron, in surgical equipment, photoflash bulbs, explosive primers, rayon spinnerets, lamp filaments, poison ivy lotions, and in superconductive magnets.   The impure oxide, zirconia, is used for laboratory crucibles to withstand heat shock, for metallurgical furnace linings, and for refractory materials in the glass and ceramic industries. ^{Lide 4-34}

Zirconium was discovered in 1789 by Martin Heirich Klaproth, a German chemist.   The impure metal was isolated by Jöns Jakob Berzelius, a Swedish chemist, in 1824 by heating a mixture of potassium and potassium zirconium fluoride.   Pure zirconium was isolated in 1914.   Zirconium is found in zircon, baddeleyite, and in many other ores.   It is produced commercially by reducing the chloride with magnesium in the Kroll process, and by other methods. ^{Lide 4-34}