Structural properties of the inner coordination sphere of indium chloride complexes in organic and aqueous solutions.

The nature of the inner coordination sphere of In(3+) present in both the organic and aqueous solutions during the solvent extraction of In(3+) from an aqueous HCl solution with tri-n-octyl amine (TOA) was investigated by In K-edge XAFS. This information was then used to clarify the details of the extraction properties of indium chloride anion complexes with TOA. In aqueous HCl solution (0.1-10 M), In(3+) exists as octahedral anion complexes, InCln(H2O)6-n (n ≥ 4); the InCl6 complex is dominant at 10 M HCl. The extraction of In(3+) from HCl solution with TOA was performed using two kinds of diluents: nitrobenzene (NB) or n-dodecane (DD), which contained 20 vol% of 2-ethylhexanol as an additive. The stoichiometric composition of the extracted complexes, which is estimated from the distribution ratios of In(3+), is affected by the diluents and the HCl concentration of the aqueous phase; the apparent values of TOA/In(3+) in the extracted complex are 3 for DD-1 M HCl (diluent-aqueous phase) and DD-5 M HCl, 2 for NB-1 M HCl and NB-5 M HCl, and 1 for NB-10 M HCl. The EXAFS analysis of these extracted complexes shows that the In(3+) has ∼4 Cl(-) at ∼2.336 Å and no H2O in the inner coordination sphere; additionally, the shape of the XANES suggests that their coordination geometry is tetrahedral. Therefore, the same tetrahedral InCl4 complex is formed during the extraction in spite of the variation in the stoichiometric composition (TOA/In(3+) = 1-3) of the extracted complexes.