Zirconium

Zirconium is a chemical elemental metal. It is a greyish-white in color. It is atomic number 40 on the periodic table. Its symbol is Zr. And it is in the family of four (4). Zirconium alloys are used as cladding for nuclear fuel rods.

 Production 
Most zirconium is made from the mineral zircon. Zircon is also called zirconium silicate (). Zirconium is found in many types of sand and rock. These sources of zircon are crushed into a powder, separated using a centrifuge, and then treated with chemicals in a process called leaching. This separates the pure zircon from other minerals.

Zircon needs to be split apart into zirconia and silica in order to purify it further. One way of doing this is alkaline fusion. In this chemical process, zircon is treated with a base like sodium hydroxide or sodium carbonate.

Zirconia is finally treated in the Kroll process to make pure zirconium metal.

Further processing is needed to make nuclear-grade zirconium, because zirconium normally contains small amounts of hafnium, a neutron poison.

 References 

Category:Transition metals