Characterization of a mixed salt of 1-hydroxy-pyridin-2-one Pu(IV)complexes

Most expert analyses of the projected world energy needs show utilization of nuclear energy will be essential for the next few decades, and hence the need to support this technology grows. But as one measure of the supporting science base of this field, as of December 2006, only 25 Pu containing structures were in the Cambridge Structural Database, as compared to 21,807 for Fe. A comparison of the rate of addition to this knowledge base reveals that approximately 500 Fe structures are registered with the Cambridge Structural Database every year, while in the same period only two or three Pu crystal structures are published. A continuing objective of this laboratory has been the development of new sequestering agents for actinide decorporation and selective extractions. This effort has been based on similarities in the properties of Pu(IV) and Fe(III), and the chelating groups in microbial Fe(III) sequestering agents, siderophores. The HOPO ligands (Figure 1) are one such class of chelating group which have been investigated as selective actinide extractants.