Studies of basic zirconium carbonate, oxalate, nitrate and sulphate using TG, DTA and DTG methods, combined with isothermal gaseous product analyses, IR spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction techniques, have shown that the ease of ligand removal from such salts follows the sequence: ‘loosely bound’ H2O>CO32−≈ C2O42−>NO3−>OH− (or ‘ tightly bound’ H2O)>SO42−.