In industrial nuclear fuel reprocessing, small amounts of ruthenium are extracted by tri-n-butyl-phosphate (TBP) at the same time as uranium and plutonium. This behavior increases solvent radiolysis and requires secondary extraction cycles to minimize the residual ruthenium content in uranium and plutonium products. However, the solvent ruthenium extraction mechanism remains largely unexplored. This study addresses the speciation of ruthenium in solvent extraction conditions by complementary infrared and X-ray absorption spectroscopy. First, spectroscopic result interpretation is supported by a single crystal X-ray diffraction study on reference compounds to unambiguously demonstrate that the ruthenium extraction mechanism is driven by a weak outer-sphere Ru–TBP interaction. Second, the ruthenium coordination sphere is quantitatively characterized. Ruthenium speciation in the organic phase depends on the initial aqueous phase, and both monomeric ruthenium nitrosyl trinitrate complexes and a hydrolyzed dimeric ruthenium nitrosyl complex are shown. Average coordination numbers for nitrate, hydroxide, and aquo ligands are accurately determined in both phases, by applying a constrained EXAFS fit approach.

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