As a novel and functional solvent, ionic liquids have received increasing attentions in nuclear industry for its potential application on the extraction and separation of radioactive metal ions. Despite of a number of studies on the liquid-liquid solvent extraction of metal ions using ionic liquids, studies on the complexation behavior of metal ions in ionic liquids are relatively rare. The present work focuses on the complexation of uranyl ion in ionic liquids. The complexation of uranyl ion with a variety of ligands was studied by means of spectroscopic and thermodynamic techniques. The species of uranyl complexes formed in ionic liquids and the corresponding thermodynamic parameters such as conditional stability constants, enthalpy, and entropy have been obtained. The thermodynamic and structural results provide additional insight into the unique solvation environment of ionic liquids and help us further understand experimental behaviors in practical applications such as solvent extraction.

Thermodynamic studies on the complexation of uranyl ion in ionic liquids

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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