Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory found a tug-of-war technique to improve chemical separations required to recuperate vital products. Credit: Alex Ivanov/ ORNL, U.S.Dept of Energy
The lanthanide metals, with usages covering from magnets and drivers to cancer treatments, are special resources. Ensuring their future ease of access depends upon establishing enhanced techniques for separating specific lanthanide components from their groups, as conventional strategies are lengthy, pricey, and produce waste.
“Our approach is flexible and can be tailored to select specific lanthanides for a faster route to separating adjacent elements,” stated Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Santa Jansone-Popova
ORNL researchers integrated 2 ligands, or metal-binding particles, to target light and heavy lanthanides all at once for remarkably effective separation.
Solvent extraction leverages the separating function of oil-water mixes and usually uses ligands that assist targeted products from water to oil. The brand-new technique sets an oil-loving ligand that looks for much heavier lanthanides with a water-loving equivalent that targets lighter components. The tug-of-war match-up pulls apart lanthanides that are specifically challenging to divide.
“Fundamental discoveries such as this one can advance economical and environmentally responsible separations strategies,” Jansone-Popova stated.
Reference: “Size Selective Ligand Tug of War Strategy to Separate Rare Earth Elements” by Katherine R. Johnson, Darren M. Driscoll, Joshua T. Damron, Alexander S. Ivanov and Santa Jansone-Popova, 25 January 2023, JACS Au
DOI: 10.1021/ jacsau.2 c00671
