EaStCHEM School of Chemistry, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, EH9 3FJ, UK.
School of Geosciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, EH9 3FE, UK.
Nat Commun. 2022 Aug 3;13(1):4497. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-32178-3.
Supramolecular chemical strategies for Rare Earth (RE) element separations are emerging which amplify the small changes in properties across the series to bias selectivity in extraction or precipitation. These advances are important as the REs are crucial to modern technologies yet their extraction, separation, and recycling using conventional techniques remain challenging. We report here a pre-organised triamidoarene platform which, under acidic, biphasic conditions, uniquely and selectively precipitates light RE nitratometalates as supramolecular capsules. The capsules exhibit both intra- and intermolecular hydrogen bonds that dictate selectivity, promote precipitation, and facilitate the straightforward release of the RE and recycling of the receptor. This work provides a self-assembly route to metal separations that exploits size and shape complementarity and has the potential to integrate into conventional processes due to its compatibility with acidic metal feed streams.
用于稀土（RE）元素分离的超分子化学策略正在出现，这些策略放大了整个系列中性质的微小变化，从而在萃取或沉淀中偏向选择性。这些进展很重要，因为 RE 对于现代技术至关重要，但使用传统技术提取、分离和回收它们仍然具有挑战性。我们在这里报告了一种预组织的三氨基芳烃平台，在酸性、双相条件下，该平台独特且选择性地将轻 RE 硝酸盐作为超分子胶囊沉淀出来。这些胶囊表现出分子内和分子间氢键，决定了选择性，促进沉淀，并有利于 RE 的简单释放和受体的回收。这项工作提供了一种自组装的金属分离途径，利用了尺寸和形状的互补性，并且由于其与酸性金属进料流的兼容性，有可能集成到传统工艺中。
