Selective Separation of Am(III)/Eu(III) by the QL-DAPhen Ligand under High Acidity: Extraction, Spectroscopy, and Theoretical Calculations.

Although 1,10-phenanthroline-based ligands have recently shown vast opportunities for the separation of trivalent actinides (Ans(III)) from lanthanides (Lns(III)), the optimization and design of the extractant structure based on the phenanthroline framework remain hotspots for further improving the separation. Following the strategy of hard and soft donor atom combination, for the first time, the quinoline group was attached to the 1,10-phenanthroline skeleton, giving a lipophilic ligand, 2,9-diacyl-bis((3,4-dihydroquinoline-1((2H)-yl)-1),10-phenanthroline (QL-DAPhen)), for Am(III)/Eu(III) separation. In the presence of sodium nitrate, the ligand can effectively extract Am(III) over Eu(III) in HNO solution, with the separation factor () ranging from 29 to 44. The coordination chemistry of Eu(III) with QL-DAPhen was investigated by slope analysis, NMR titration, UV-vis titration, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry, and theoretical calculations. The experimental results unanimously confirm that the ligand forms both 1:1 and 1:2 complexes with Eu(III), and the stability constants (log ) of each of the two complexes were obtained. Density functional theory calculations show that the Am-N bonds have more covalent characteristics than the Eu-N bonds in the complexes, which reveals the reason why the ligand preferentially bonds with Am(III). Meanwhile, the thermodynamic analysis reveals that the 1:1 complex is more thermodynamically stable than the 1:2 complex. The findings of this work have laid a solid theoretical foundation for the application of phenanthroline-based ligands in the separation of An(III) from practical systems.