Talk:Zirconium

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Good article Zirconium has been listed as one of the Natural sciences good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a reassessment.
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Article changed over to new Wikipedia:WikiProject Elements format by maveric149. Elementbox converted 11:29, 6 July 2005 by Femto (previous revision was that of 05:32, 4 July 2005).

Contents

[edit] Information Sources

Some of the text in this entry was rewritten from Los Alamos National Laboratory - Zirconium. Additional text was taken directly from USGS Zirconium Statistics and Information, from the Elements database 20001107 (via dict.org), Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) (via dict.org) and WordNet (r) 1.7 (via dict.org). Data for the table were obtained from the sources listed on the subject page and Wikipedia:WikiProject Elements but were reformatted and converted into SI units.

[edit] Talk


I do not have time to rewrite this article much of the information is incomplete, out-date and some incorrect. The following sentence is dead wrong:

"Compounds containing zirconium are encountered relatively rarely by most people and their inherent toxicity is low."

Zirconium compounds are used as an active ingredient in underarm antiperspirants commonly used in the North American market. This means zirconium compounds are commonly encountered by people.

I just came accross this interesting phenomenon in Europe. And the question popped up in my mind: why, oh, why do they put such things into a (YES, it's time for ads!) "Rexona crystal CLEAR aqua" antiperspirant? (It's so lovely to call it crystal clear aqua, i wonder what happened if someone would take it serious and drank it.) (I'm curious if it is only Rexona, but I bet the others do the same...) I also wondered if there would be anything about this here, or at least something about the beneficent effects that made it so important to put this compound into an antiperspirant. I'm so glad all the time when i meet the miracles of our beautiful chemical world, especially when it is about such natural stuff, and things that we really do encounter every day... Should anyone have an answer, please share it with us, it would make me really happy. Myrmeleon formicarius (talk) 01:46, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Well, well. I was living in darkness until today. I have discovered, that aluminum-zirconium chlorohydrate (enhanced by calcium) is a component of the antiperspirant salt that is dissolved in deodorants. I saw it here, http://www.freepatentsonline.com/EP1660188.html among other places. Myrmeleon formicarius (talk) 02:00, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

In addition, the last sentence of the introduction is wrong. Zirconium is used by the nuclear industry because it absorbs few neutrons compared to other materials, as indicated later on in the article.

I.............hit her with a bean bag! OH YOU CRIMINAL! SOCIETY! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.57.93.241 (talk) 19:19, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

If I was sure about it, I'd say why it is difficult to get it free from Hafnium. I assume it is because they are in the same period of the table, and therefore rather similar in chemical properties? How is it actually accomplished? Midgley 00:45, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I moved in some data from Zircaloy. Feel free to expand, please. --Shaddack 03:46, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Oxidation state(s)

In a literature database there are 6 references (all since 1993) that mention Zirconium(III) propoxide: the implication is Zr has an oxidation number of +3 in this compound. Any comments?? — DIV 128.250.204.118 09:28, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] magnetic order

This can not be, that there is no information on the magnetic order of Zirconium. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.130.237.234 (talk) 10:18, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA review

It's hard to find anything to complain about with this article, it's more or less at GA level already. Still, here are some issues for you to fix:

  • Characteristics section: In a powdered form -> In powder form? or does it mean amorphous? Powder form.
  • Zirconium is primarily used in nuclear reactors, especially in the cladding of the fuel rods, due to its low neutron-capture cross-section and its resistance to corrosion. source? and why so much detail compared to the Applications section? Source is found in applications section. Replaced with alloying agent statement.
  • Malysis?? is Malaysia, or... No idea. That's how it's spelled in the source. Removed.
  • The lead could use a sentence about occurence Expanded statement about zircon.

Narayanese (talk) 23:22, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Good. I'm listing it as GA. Narayanese (talk) 06:09, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Compounds

I removed the compounds section because I feel it is unnecessary in this case. Various compounds are already discussed in Occurence and Applications. This presents a lose-lose scenario. Writing an in-depth Compounds section would be repetitive, and making a list, such as that which I just removed, will never be anything more than stubby and isn't worth having. Removing it entirely makes more sense. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 01:53, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

A chemical element should DEFINATELY have a compounds section. Only some noble gases don't have such a section because all the known compounds simply decompose. Zriconium is defintely not the case. I would rather have an article that is rated lower and contains what it should contain that rate it higher for the sake of style. Nergaal (talk) 07:07, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Just including a list doesn't add anything, there is already one in the form of Category:Zirconium compounds (which is two clicks away from the article). IMO the Occurence and Applications section is the right way to include compounds, an indiscriminate list just shows that it can form minerals with the all the common anions... not such a big surprise. Narayanese (talk) 07:20, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
After discussing the matter futher at Wikipedia talk:Wikiproject Elements, I'm going to create a compounds section. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 02:02, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Peer review followup

As requested, here is a second look at the article following my peer review comments.

  • The first thing I noticed is that the article is still quite short at 24,278 bytes - for comparison, the Ti FA is 52,874 bytes and the U FA is 64,173 bytes. To me this says the article is not yet broad or complete enough in its coverage.
  • I was surprised to see that there is not standard order of topics in Element articles, but again comparing this to U and Ti should give some ideas on how to expand this further. For example U has two subsections on Applications and Ti has 5 subsections. Another example - there is more information on why Zr and Hf are so similar chemically at Lanthanide contraction than there is in this article.
  • I am not an expert on Zr and do not have more specific suggestion for expansion. I do note that the references have been improved in quality, but also see there is not a ref using Greenwood and Earnshaw or Cotton and Wilkinson - my guess is that these would have much more on uses, production, etc. I do see a ref to Krebs, Robert E. (1998). The History and Use of our Earth's Chemical Elements.
  • I would add more reaction equations, for example the Kroll process is
2Mg(l) + ZrCl4(g) → 2MgCl2(l) + Zr(s) [T = 800-850 °C] (not sure of the temp, stole this from Kroll process
  • I ran the semi-automated PR script and it found these issues (plus get a copyedit):
    • Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (numbers), there should be a non-breaking space -   between a number and the unit of measurement. For example, instead of 1 milligram, use 1 milligram, which when you are editing the page, should look like: 1 milligram. Fixed
    • Please reorder/rename the last few sections to follow guidelines at Wikipedia:Guide to layout. Fixed

Hope this helps, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 17:15, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments! I don't have any college chemistry textbooks handy (seeing as I'm not in college yet), but I'll do my best to make do. I was unaware of the term 'lanthanide contraction' - that will certainly be helpful. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 01:34, 6 May 2008 (UTC)