Current radioelement separations necessitate the dissolution of solids. The bulk material is often uranium, which is frequently not the desired product of a separation process. For targets or fuels, a method that keeps the targets or fuels solid while selectively removing specific fission products has obvious advantages. Volatile diketones, such as hexafluoroacetylacetone (Hhfac), have been used to complex fission products and actinides. Despite hexafluoroacetylacetonate (hfac) complexes being known with most transition and lanthanide metals, only a handful have been characterized for strontium and barium, and none for rubidium. For cesium, the only complexes that have been structurally characterized involve cesium as a counter-cation to metal hexafluoroacetylacetonate anions. Characterization of the species formed by Hhfac and either group 1 or group 2 fission elements were examined in this study. Cesium, rubidium, strontium, and barium hexafluoroacetylacetonate complexes were synthesized and structurally characterized. Various polyethers were examined to understand their effect on the volatility of the metal species. The polyethers varied between the η2 dimethoxy ether (DME) to the η6 18-Crown-6. The relative volatilities of these compounds were directly compared to each other with the same volatilizing conditions. The use of polyethers to break up oligomerization resulted in onset of volatility occuring at lower temperature Progressivly multidentate polyethers cause the onset of volatility to occur at higher temperatures, but with an increasing rapiditiy of loss.

Synthesis, structure, and volatility of alkali and alkaline earth element hexafluoroacetylacetonate complexes

249th National Meeting (2015)

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