Zirconium(II) hydride is a chemical compound with the chemical formula ZrH2. It is a metal hydride composed of zirconium and hydrogen. Zirconium(II) hydride in not well-characterised or well-known.
Zirconium(II) hydride has repeatedly been the subject of Dirac–Hartree–Fock relativistic calculation studies, which investigate the stabilities, geometries, and relative energies of hydrides of the formula MH4, MH3, MH2, or MH.
Zirconium(II) hydride has a dihedral (C2v) structure. By weight, the composition of zirconium(II) hydride is 2.16% hydrogen and 97.84% zirconium. In zirconium(II) hydride, the formal oxidation states of hydrogen and zirconium are -1 and +2, respectively, because the electronegativity of zirconium is lower than that of hydrogen. The stability of metal hydrides with the formula MH2 (M = Ti-Hf) decreases as the atomic number increases.
In 1995, Chertihin and Andrews carefully studied the peparation of ZrH2 by laser ablation and additionally identified the infrared (IR) bands.