The effect of temperature on pickling rate of zirconium alloy and the heat release constant was studied in this paper by soaked method. The results show that temperature has exponential effect on pickling rate of zirconium alloy, the rate increases 2.0~2.5 times 10℃ at 20~60℃. The pickling frequency factor is about 1.18×10
12 and the activation energy is about 70 k J/mol. The pickling reaction of zirconium alloy is exothermic. The reaction temperature increases with the pickling process in which the heat release constant is 760 k J/mol.