New Bitopic Ligands for the Group Actinide Separation by Solvent Extraction

The synthesis and evaluation of solvent extraction performance of N,N,N',N'-tetraalkyl-6,6''-(2,2':6',2''-terpyridine)diamides and N,N'-diethyl-N,N'-diphenyl-6,6''-(2,2':6',2''-terpyridine)diamide are reported here. These new bitopic ligands were found to extract actinides in different oxidation states (U(VI), Np(V and VI), Pu(IV), Am(III), and Cm(III)) from 3 M nitric acid. The presence of three soft nitrogen donors led to the selective extraction of actinides(III) over lanthanides(III) (Ce, Eu) and the presence of two amide functional groups grafted to the terpyridine unit allowed the extraction to occur from a highly acidic medium by minimizing the basicity of the ligand. Ligands bearing long alkyl chains (C4 and C8) or phenyl groups showed increased performances in a polar diluent like nitrobenzene.