Capitalizing on Differing Coordination Environments and Redox Potentials to Prepare an Ordered Heterobimetallic UVI/NpIV Diphosphonate

Order out of chaos: The reduction of NpVI to NpIV readily occurs under mild hydrothermal conditions in the presence of phosphonates, sharply contrasting with UVI, which maintains its oxidation state under identical conditions. By coupling the differing redox potentials of UVI and NpVI with the vastly different coordination chemistry of UVI and NpIV, the first example of an ordered UVI/NpIV phosphonate is prepared (see structure: U green, Np purple (large), O red, P purple (small)).