Radiation-induced effects on the extraction properties of hexa--octylnitrilo-triacetamide (HONTA) complexes of americium and europium

Toigawa, Tomohiro; Peterman, D. R.*; Meeker, D. S.*; Grimes, T. S.*; Zalupski, P. R.*; Mezyk, S. P.*; Cook, A. R.*; Yamashita, Shinichi*; Kumagai, Yuta; Matsumura, Tatsuro; et al.

Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, 23(2), p.1343 - 1351, 2021/01

https://doi.org/10.1039/D0CP05720G

The candidate An(III)/Ln(III) separation ligand hexa--octylnitrilo-triacetamide (HONTA) was irradiated under envisioned SELECT (Solvent Extraction from Liquid waste using Extractants of CHON-type for Transmutation) process conditions using a solvent test loop in conjunction with cobalt-60 gamma irradiation. We demonstrate that HONTA undergoes exponential decay with increasing gamma dose to produce a range of degradation products which have been identified and quantified by HPLC-ESI-MS/MS techniques. The combination of HONTA destruction and degradation product ingrowth, particularly dioctylamine, negatively impacts the extraction and back-extraction of both americium and europium ions. The loss of HONTA was attributed to its reaction with the solvent (-dodecane) radical cation of (HONTA + R) = (7.61 0.82) 10 M s obtained by pulse radiolysis techniques. However, when this ligand is bound to either americium or europium ions, the observed -dodecane radical cation kinetics increase by over an order of magnitude. This large reactivity increase to additional reaction pathways occurring upon metal-ion binding. Lastly nanosecond time-resolved measurements showed that both direct and indirect HONTA radiolysis yielded the short-lived (100 ns) HONTA radical cation as well as a longer-lived (s) HONTA triplet excited state. These HONTA species are important precursors to the suite of HONTA degradation products observed.