Selective extracting agents of lanthanides and actinides are greatly needed for research and industrial applications. It is imperative that the separation methods are optimized to be highly selective, since separating contiguous lanthanides is particularly challenging. Through a collaborative experimental and theoretical project, we seek to explain trends observed experimentally in the separation of lanthanides and actinides, as well as the changes of extraction preference of yttrium with respect to different extracting agents amongst the lanthanide series. Through ab-initio calculations we have studied the behavior of several carboxylic acids as separation agents to contribute to the understanding and further optimization of separation and extraction methods. Results from studies with benzoic and butyric acid will be presented, as well as substituted forms of these acids.   Harrison and Penchoff gratefully acknowledge the support of the National Science Foundation under grant OCI-0904972 �Computational chemistry and physics beyond the petascale.�

Optimization and design of extracting agents for separations of lanthanides and actinides, and studies of itinerant extraction of yttrium amongst the lanthanides series

245th National Meeting (2013)

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