Separation of Am(III), Cm(III) and Eu(III) by electro-spun polystyrene-immobilized CyMe4-BTPhen

Abstract

The synthesis of a novel 5-(4-vinylphenyl)-CyMe4-BTPhen actinide selective ligand using selenium free synthetic procedures is reported. For the first time, we report the electrospinning of this actinide selective ligand into a polystyrene fiber and investigate its selective removal of Am(III) from Eu(III) and Am(III) from Cm(III). At 4 M HNO3, the resulting fibrous solid extractant produced separation factors of SFAm/Eu ≈ 57 and a small, but significant separation of SFAm/Cm ≈ 2.9.