Increasing the use of nuclear fuels for power production is one proposal to limit our dependence on fossil fuels and atmospheric emissions; however, fuel remediation is made more difficult by gaps in our understanding of actinide chemistry. There is a tremendous need to develop a better fundamental understanding of the underlying factors that control ligand selectivity. New ligands are required that can coordinate, sense, and purify actinides for use in sensors or decontamination applications.  This will both allow us to develop new separations and sensor technologies and further our understanding of the chemistry of the lanthanides and the radioactive actinides (the f-elements). Chemosensors for actinides have the potential to allow for rapid in-the-field visual identification and thus increase ease of decontamination. We have developed ligands incorporating quinoxalines or imine aza-donors into a salen-like backbone. The addition of a quinoxaline to the salen imparts the fluorescence to the quinoxaline and alters the coordination site. We have used these complexes to probe the contributing factors toward selectivity, signal intensity, and the differentiation between actinides (like uranium and thorium) and transition metals (like copper or cobalt) as the basis of new chemosensors or fluorescent sensors to allow for rapid in-the-field visual identification.

Quinoxalinol salens for actinide sensors and sensing polymers

247th National Meeting (2014)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.