Boric acid flux reactions with lanthanide and actinide trichlorides have yielded new structures and insights into the production of the f-borates. These reactions proceeded at significantly lower temperatures than previous experiments and for a much shorter duration. Indeed, prior reactions with the same starting materials produced only two lanthanide products, but each actinide from plutonium to californium yielded a unique product. There was no systematic answer for why one structure was preferred over another, so by manipulating the reaction conditions, intermediate phases have been sequentially isolated and characterized. One new product is a neodymium hexaborate chloride which is analogous to a series of lanthanide hexaborate bromides. An americium hexaborate chloride which is isomorphous to this new neodymium product has been obtained as the first kinetic product in the americium chloride-boric acid system. The second americium borate phase is isomorphous with a known samarium borate, and is notable for excluding all chlorides which were present in the starting material. Further studies are pending as of submission of this abstract, and we anticipate presentation of further new actinide structures as well. This presentation will discuss the new structures and argue for the reaction order presented.

Untangling intermediate products in flux-derived f-element borates

254th National Meeting (2017)

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