Roles of d- and f-orbital electrons in the complexation of Eu(III) and Am(III) ions with alkyldithiophosphinic acid and alkylphosphinic acid using scalar-relativistic DFT calculations

Kaneko, Masashi   ; Watanabe, Masayuki   ; Miyashita, Sunao*; Nakashima, Satoru*

Density functional calculations were applied to the complexation of Eu(III) and Am(III) ions with phosphinic acid (O-donor) and dihiophosphinic acid (S-donor) from the viewpoint of the bonding nature of valence orbitals in metal ion. Two and four conformers for S-donor and O-donor complexes, respectively were optimized. Their stabilization energies by complex formation toward [M(HO)] were estimated. As the result, the energies reproduced the experimental Am(III)/Eu(III) selectivity that O-donor ligand preferably coordinates to Eu(III) ion, whereas S-donor ligand selectively coordinates to Am(III) ion. Focused on the bonding natures of d and f-orbital electrons, it was indicated that the d-orbital electrons in both Eu and Am complexes participate in the covalency as bonding-type nature and have the almost same contribution. Meanwhile, the contribution of the f-orbital electrons was different between Eu and Am complexes and indicated that in the case of S-donor complex, non-bonding type and bonding type contributions were observed for Eu and Am complexes, respectively and in the case of O-donor complex, bonding type and anti-bonding type contributions were observed for Eu and Am complexes, respectively. This result suggested that the bonding natures of d-orbital electrons contribute to the geometrical similarity of molecular structures for Eu and Am complexes and the bonding natures of f-orbital electrons contribute to the difference in the selectivity of Eu and Am ions.