Single Crystal Synthesis Methods Dedicated to Structural Investigations of Very Low Solubility Mixed-Actinide Oxalate Coordination Polymers

Two crystal growth methods dedicated to very low solubility actinide coordination polymers have been developed and applied to the synthesis of mixed actinide(IV)–actinide(IV) or actinide(IV)–actinide(III) oxalate single crystals of a size (typically 100–300 μm) suitable for isolating them and examin...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Crystal growth & design 2012-11, Vol.12 (11), p.5447-5455
Main Authors: Tamain, Christelle, Arab-Chapelet, Bénédicte, Rivenet, Murielle, Abraham, Francis, Grandjean, Stéphane
Format: Article
Language:eng
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Summary:Two crystal growth methods dedicated to very low solubility actinide coordination polymers have been developed and applied to the synthesis of mixed actinide(IV)–actinide(IV) or actinide(IV)–actinide(III) oxalate single crystals of a size (typically 100–300 μm) suitable for isolating them and examining their crystal structure. These methods have been optimized on mixed systems composed of U(IV) and lanthanide (surrogate of trivalent actinides) and then assessed on U(IV)–Am(III), Pu(IV)–Am(III), and U(IV)–Pu(IV) mixtures. Three types of single crystals characterized by different structures have been obtained according to the synthesis and the chemical conditions. This is the first time that these well-known or recently discovered key compounds are formed by crystal growth methods specifically developed for actinide crystal handling (i.e., in glove boxes), thus enabling direct structural studies on transuranium element systems and acquisition of basic data. Characterization by X-ray diffraction, UV–visible solid spectroscopy, thermal ionization mass spectroscopy (TIMS), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), and inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES) demonstrates the potentialities and complementarity of the two crystal growth methods for obtaining the targeted mixed oxalates (actinide oxidation state and presence of both metallic ions in the crystal). More generally, this development opens broad prospects for single crystal synthesis of novel actinide organic frameworks and their structural description.
ISSN:1528-7483
1528-7505