Abstract
Understanding actinide chemistry is critical for nuclear waste treatment as well as for illuminating the role of f orbitals in bonding and reactivity. Researchers have made a leap forward in neptunium chemistry, preparing the first NpII and NpIII organometallic complexes (Nat. Chem. 2016, DOI: 10.1038/nchem.2520). Working at the Institute for Transuranium Elements, a team led by Polly L. Arnold of the University of Edinburgh combined radioactive NpCl4 and a macrocyclic ligand, trans-calix[2]benzene[2]pyrrole, to form a mononuclear NpIII complex with the Np bound to the nitrogens of the pyrrole groups and sandwiched between the aryl rings; a fifth bond goes to Cl. The researchers reduced the complex to form a similar NpII structure in which the Cl is replaced by a neutral molecule of the solvent, dimethoxyethane, bound through its oxygens via a bidentate linkage. The NpII complex decays to a binuclear NpIII complex. Analysis of the mononuclear NpIII complex indicates
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