Zirconium

Zirconium is a chemical element with the symbol Zr and atomic number 40. The name originates from the word Jargon, pronounced Zargon (/zargon/) in very very western Mongolian. This is because ancient grifters (commonly referred to as zirkers) selling fake metals used lots of scientific jargon in order to pass off their zirconium as gold to unsuspecting customers.

Zirkers

Sir Con

The most famous of the zirkers was Sir Con. In fact, he is so well-known that the term "Con Artist" is named after him. He lived somewhere in the middle east. In the year 177 BC, he fell down a cave and lost his vision. However, what he did feel were strange, hard crystals. He painstakingly separated out the zirconium metal atom by atom from the crystals, and sold it for a profit. There are more efficient methods of refining zirconium today, but he wasn't able to use them because he couldn't see.

Sir Con gained notoriety after hitting it big, and as such this crystal was named Sircon (ZrSiO4) to honor him. The Russians renamed the mineral to Zircon in 2022 following their unsuspected invasion of Ukraine, because they thought it would garner support.

Today

The tradition of zirking continues even today. Unsuspectingly, zirconium dealers often lace their zirconium with 1-3% hafnium. They claim that because zirconium and hafnium are so similar, it's difficult to completely separate them. They can't keep getting away with this.

Zirconium Pants

A non-zirker named Juno knew that he had been had so he shot at the sun with a gun, as well as his only friend. Wait, was the sun his only friend? Were they the same entity? I'm not quite sure. Anyways, in the gallows or ghettos or towns or meadows or bellows or over the sun, every end of time is another begun. Juno had to be told that he should understand that the mechanical hands are the Ruler of Everything, presumably by the ruler of everything himself. He went to go buy some zirconium at Walmart. He was unsuspecting that it was half hafnium as he turned them into new clothing.

The artifact has been recovered.

When Juno danced in his zirconium pants, the Ruler of Everything was unamused. The ruler knew his facade was a scam, in reference to the hafnium content. The pants were discarded and something unknown happened, but luckily enthusiastic zirkers were able to recover the clothing. They now reside in the Springfield Museum of Natural History, right beside the World's Largest Cubic Zirconia (the museum is organized by element).

Production

Because of the unsuspected rise of zirkers in the modern day, those who want premium zirconium are going to have to work for it. Hafnium-zirconium mixtures are common in ores like Ill Men Aight and Rude Tile. They are separated out with big magnet and are subjected to chlorine gas. This gas was used as a chemical warfare agent in World War 1, leading to the unsuspected creation of Zirconium Tetrachloride, which is how the Kool Process was discovered. Then, the zirconium/hafnium tetrachloride mixture is reacted with Mangnesium to reduce to the metal. At that point, high-quality zirconium manufacturers will remove the hafnium. I don't know how they do that, because I don't make it.

Cubic Zirconia

The history of zirconium is filled with scams. The zirker John Cube invented Cubic Zirconia by adding oxygen to zirconium in 1892. Its formula is ZrO2, and felt almost identical to diamond. He took note of this similarity and announced it to the world, using his fame from his earlier discovery of the Hexahedron in order to unsuspectingly boost his credibility. His plan was to then sell worthless diamonds to zirconium enthusiasts, while keeping the cubic zirconia for himself. The plan actually worked, because most of his customers went blind ages ago by falling into the zircon cave in mad attempts to seize the crystals for themselves. He wasn't exposed until I found out 2 days ago. You might be wondering, why didn't John just subtract a two oxygens and a silicon from the zircon, without having to do whatever that production section was about?

See Also

• Diamond