Zircon-containing natural silicate ZrSiO4 is called zircon (Zircon) or hyacinth (hyacinth) widely distributed in nature, with a variety of beautiful colors from orange to red, since ancient times it is considered a gemstone, it is said that the word Zircon comes from the Arabic word Zarqūn, which is cinnabar, and it is also said to come from the Persian word Zargun, which is gold, and hyacinth comes from the Greek word "lily", and the island country of Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean is rich in zircon. Gemstones containing zirconium as a form of zircon have been known since ancient times.
In 1789, the German M.H.Klaproth found that when he studied zircon, it was eutectic with sodium hydroxide, the coolant was dissolved with hydrochloric acid, potassium carbonate was added to the solution, the precipitation was filtered and cleaned, and then the sediment was co-boiled with sulfuric acid, and then the oxide of silicon was filtered out, and calcium, magnesium, The oxide of aluminum, which was not found, precipitated after the addition of potassium carbonate to the solution, this precipitate did not dissolve in lye like alumina, nor did it interact with acid like magnesium oxide, Klaproth believed that this precipitate was different from the previously known oxides, and was composed of Zirkonerde (zirconium, German), and soon the French chemist de Both Morueau and Vauquelin confirmed the correctness of M.H. Klaproth's analysis, the Latin name of the element is Zirconium, and the symbol is Zr, which is translated as zirconium in Chinese.
In 1808, Britain's H.Davy used an electric current to decompose zirconium compounds, without success, in 1824, Sweden's J.J. Berzelius first used potassium to reduce K2ZrF6 to produce metal zirconium, but it was not pure enough, the reaction formula was: K2ZrF6 + 4K = Zr + 6KF, the reaction can also be used Na as a reducing agent, until 1914, two researchers Lely and Ham in a metal white hot lamp manufacturing plant in the Netherlands Bruger used anhydrous zirconium tetrachloride and excess sodium metal into an empty ball, heated by electric current at 500 °C, and obtained pure metal zirconium.
Completely pure zirconium was only produced in 1925 by Dutch chemists Anton Eduard van Arkel and Jan Hendrik de Boer by decomposing zirconium tetraiodide (ZrI4). Zirconium is produced in large quantities by heating zirconium tetrachloride with magnesium.