The important effect of ligand architecture on the selectivity of metal ion recognition in An(iii)/Ln(iii) separation with N-donor extractants

Abstract

The existence of a strong correlation between ligand architecture and metal ion binding selectivity is demonstrated through large differences in the separation efficiencies found in the selective extraction of Am³⁺ from an acidic mixture of Am³⁺ and Eu³⁺ for three new tetrapodal hexadentate ligands containing four 2-pyrazinylmethyl groups attached to three different diamino spacers.