During
the PUREX process, the separation between U(VI)
and Pu(IV)
is achieved by reducing Pu(IV) to Pu(III), which is complicated and
energy-consuming. To address this issue, we report here the first
case of separation of U(VI) from Pu(IV) by o-phenanthroline
diamide ligands under high acidity. Two new o-phenanthroline
diamide ligands (1,10-phenanthroline-2,9-diyl)bis(indolin-1-ylmethanone)
(L1) and (1,10-phenanthroline-2,9-diyl)bis((2-methylindolin-1-yl)methanone)
(L2) were synthesized, which can effectively separate U(VI) from Pu(IV)
even at 4 mol/L HNO3. The highest separation factor of
U(VI) and Pu(IV) can reach over 1000, setting a new record for the
separation of U(VI) from Pu(IV) under high acidity. Furthermore,
extracted U(VI) can be easily recovered with water or dilute nitric
acid, and the extraction performance remains stable even after 150
kGy gamma irradiation, which provides solid experimental support for
potential engineering applications. The results of UV–vis titration
and single-crystal X-ray diffraction measurements show that the 1:1
complex formed by L1 with U(VI) is more stable than all of the previously
reported phenanthroline ligands, which reasonably reveals that the
ligand L1 designed in this work has excellent affinity for U(VI).
The findings of this work promise to contribute to the facilitation
of the PUREX process by avoiding the use of reducing agents. It also
provides new clues for designing ligands to achieve efficient separation
between U(VI) and Pu(IV) at high acidity.