Exploring the bonding and extraction separation effects of N donor ligands with different skeletons on Am(III) and Eu(III)

Designing ligands for effective separation of actinide(III)/lanthanide(III) is one of the key issues in the treatment of spent nuclear fuel. However, due to the chemical similarity of trivalent actinides and lanthanides, their separation faces a great challenge in the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. Nitrogen donor extractants are considered as promising reagents for separation of trivalent actinides and lanthanides. To the best of our knowledge, the pre-organized structure of the ligand has a strong influence on the extraction separation capacity. In this work, we designed four N-donor ligands (L-1 and L-2 with pyridine and bipyridine skeletons, respectively, and L-3 and L-4 both with phenanthroline skeletons) with different pre-organized structures and investigated their selective extraction for Am(III) and Eu(III) by using scalar relativistic density functional theory (DFT). The absolute minimum ESP values of these ligands and the higher HOMO level suggest that the ligand L-2 may have a stronger affinity for Am(III)/Eu(III) ions than other ligands. The three average bond lengths of each complex indicate that the Am(III) and Eu(III) ions have larger bond lengths with N2 atoms than with N1 atoms. Various theoretical approaches have been used to evaluate the properties of the four ligands as well as the coordination structures, bonding properties and thermodynamic properties of the complexes of the four ligands with Am(III) and Eu(III). The WBIs, QTAIM, NBO, DOS and EDA analysis indicate that the metal-ligand bonds are mainly ionic in character, the Am-N bond has more covalency than the Eu-N bond because the Am 5f orbitals are more involved in bonding with ligand than Eu 4f orbitals. According to the extended transition state and natural orbital chemical valence theory (ETS-NOCV) analysis, electrons are obviously transferred from the lone pair of the ligand N atom to the hybrid s, d and f orbitals of the metal ion. The thermodynamic results show that the four ligands can coordinate well with the Am and Eu ions, and also have suitable separation capacity for Am and Eu. Among the four ligands, the L-2 and L-3 ligands have the strongest coordination ability for metals and the best extraction separation effect for Am and Eu. It can be seen that the bridging skeleton of the ligand and the number of N atoms on the five-membered ring and also different organic solvents have obvious effects on the extraction and separation capacity of the ligand. This study provides a theoretical basis for the efficient separation of Am(III)/Eu(III) by adjusting the preorganization level of ligands, and provides a theoretical basis for the design and screening of ligands by preorganization.