Photoexcitation of ZrO₂ particles causes luminescence (τ~15.0 s) which, after its termination, on addition of H₂ causes emission of a light pulse that displays biphasic decay kinetics (τ₁~0.9 s and τ₂~15.5 s). The latter emission is referred to as a photoinduced chesorluminescence (PhICL). At 77 K, the longer-lived emission is thermally quenched. The shorter-lived emission is caused by electron trapping by the V_a (anion vacancies) low energy traps; the longer-lived emission involves electron trapping by shallow traps, followed by detrapping and subsequent retrapping by the V_a traps. Formation of highly energetic radical species is a necessary condition to observe PhICL emission.