Zirconium for use in jewelry. Zirconia is a component in some abrasives, such as grinding wheels and sandpaper. A small fraction of the zircon is converted to the metal, which finds various niche applications. Because of zirconium's excellent resistance to corrosion, it is often used as an alloying agent in materials that are exposed to aggressive environments, such as surgical appliances, light filaments, and watch cases. The high reactivity of zirconium with oxygen at high temperatures is exploited in some specialised applications such as explosive primers and as getters in vacuum tubes. The same property is (probably) the purpose of including
Zirconium phosphate Zirconium phosphate Zirconium phosphates (zirconium hydrogen phosphate) are acidic, inorganic cation exchange materials that have a layered structure with formula Zr(HPO)∙nHO. Zirconium phosphates have high thermal and chemical stability, solid state ion conductivity, resistance to ionizing radiation, and the capacity to incorporate different types of molecules with different sizes between their layers. There are various phases of zirconium phosphate which vary in their interlaminar spaces and their crystalline structure. Among all the Zirconium phosphate phases the most widely used are the alpha (Zr(HPO)∙HO) and the gamma (Zr(PO)(HPO)∙2HO) phase. Zirconium phosphate have been widely used in several applications such as: drug