In the early 1990s Dave Clark was expanding from his tremendous foundations and contributions in f-element organometallic and alkoxide chemistry into the aqueous chemistry of uranyl. Joining Dave’s research team then was akin to joining an adventurous journey, using modern inorganic chemistry methods not yet applied to most actinides, to explore and map uranium chemistry and carve out new paths in transuranic science. We took direct and indirect routes to characterize carbonate, hydroxide, chloride complexes and to quantify their speciation.<br/><br/>It was simply a joy and a privilege to work with Dave! His enthusiasm was infectious and his energy boundless: Every day was an opportunity to make a new discovery. (And to overcome the technical and bureaucratic obstacles to conducting our experiments with toxic radionuclides.) To advance our expedition we brought modern inorganic chemistry methods and tools, used in bioinorganic and organometallic research, to our experiments with aqueous actinyl and actinide complexes. Dave learned from others, and fashioned his own approaches to prepare, contain, transport and examine radioactive samples using laboratory and synchrotron-based spectroscopic methods. These fundamental studies served as a platform for a generation of researchers to learn from and extend. Examples of our early work and how it led to branching studies of highly-coordinated plutonium complexes, bioinorganic transformations and environmental species will be discussed.

Actinide coordination chemistry with environmental and biological applications

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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