Abstract
Due to the ever-increasing demand for high-purity individual rare-earth elements, novel and highly selective separation processes are increasingly sought after. Herein, we report a separation protocol that employs shape-persistent 2,9-bis-lactam-1,10-phenanthroline (BLPhen) ligands exhibiting unparalleled selectivity for light trivalent lanthanides. The highly preorganised binding pockets of the ligands allowed for the separation of lanthanides with high fidelity, even in the presence of competing transition metals, in a biphasic separation system. Notably, the selectivity trends of the BLPhen ligands towards metal ions across the lanthanide series can be chemically modulated by altering the molecular rigidity of the extractant.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 6326-6331 |
| Number of pages | 6 |
| Journal | Chemistry - A European Journal |
| Volume | 25 |
| Issue number | 25 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - May 2 2019 |
Funding
The authors thank Dr. Ilja Popovs for helpful discussions and Frederick V. Sloop Jr. for help with ICP-OES. This research was sponsored by the Fuel Cycle Research and Development program, Office of Nuclear Energy, and the Critical Materials Institute, an Energy Innovation Hub funded by the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Advanced Manufacturing Office, U.S. Department of Energy. This research used resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center and Compute and Data Environment for Science (CADES) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, both of which are supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract DE-AC02-05CH11231 and DE-AC05-00OR22725, respectively.
Keywords
- N ligands
- biphasic separation
- lanthanides
- nitrogen heterocycles
- transition metals