[1] These salts 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.
The salts have been widely used in several applications such as: drug delivery,[2][3] catalysis,[4] nanocomposite,[5] nuclear waste management,[6] clinical dialyzer,[7] among others.
In the interlayer region is localized a zeolitic cavity where a basal water molecule resides, forming a hydrogen bond with the OH group of the phosphate that is perpendicular to the layer.
[10] For the gamma phase (γ-Zirconium phosphate), unfortunately, an appropriate single crystal for single-crystal structure determination has been futile to obtain.
In 1995 Clearfield and coworkers elucidated its structure using X-ray powder diffractometry (XRPD) and the Rietveld refinement method.