Abstract
We performed neutron polarization analysis (NPA) of extracted organic phases containing complexes, comprised of Zr(NO3)4 and tri-n-butyl phosphate, which enabled decomposition of the intensity distribution of small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) into the coherent and incoherent scattering components. The coherent scattering intensity, containing structural information, and the incoherent scattering compete over a wide range of magnitude of scattering vector, q, specifically when q is larger than q* ≈ 1/Rg, where Rg is the radius of gyration of scatterer. Therefore, it is important to determine the incoherent scattering intensity exactly to perform an accurate structural analysis from SANS data when Rg is small, such as the aforementioned extracted coordination species. Although NPA is the best method for evaluating the incoherent scattering component for accurately determining the coherent scattering in SANS, this method is not used frequently in SANS data analysis because it is technically challenging. In this study, we successfully demonstrated that experimental determination of the incoherent scattering using NPA is suitable for sample systems containing a small scatterer with a weak coherent scattering intensity, such as extracted complexes in biphasic solvent extraction systems.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 399-406 |
Number of pages | 8 |
Journal | Solvent Extraction and Ion Exchange |
Volume | 34 |
Issue number | 5 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jul 28 2016 |
Funding
This work was supported in part by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan (Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research B, 2014-2018, No. 26289368). The neutron scattering experiments at the SNS, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, were performed with the approval of the Scientific User Facilities Division, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, U.S. Department of Energy. This work utilized facilities supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Agreement No. DMR-1508249. M.N. acknowledges funding support of cooperative agreement No. 70NANB10H255 from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), U.S. Department of Commerce.
Keywords
- Neutron polarization analysis
- solvent extraction
- tri-n-butyl phosphate