Novel diamide ligands with a central carbonyl group and their comparative evaluation with the diglycolamide ligand: synthesis, extraction, DFT and chromatographic studies

Abstract

Abstract The extraction behaviour of U(VI), Th(IV) and Nd(III) was investigated as a function of nitric acid concentration for diamide based extractants, namely, N,N,N′,N′-tetraoctyl-3-carbonylpentanediamide (TOCPDA) and 4-carbonyl-heptanedioic acid bis-dioctylamide (CHADA). In addition, the distribution ratio was also measured for Pu(IV) and Sr(II) with 1.1 M CHADA in n-dodecane. These extractants were synthesized by adopting simple acid, amine coupling reaction with DCC (dicyclohexylcarbodiimide) and DMAP (N,N′-dimethylaminopyridine) as the coupling agent. The newly synthesized extractants were characterized by FT-IR, NMR, Mass, CHNS and HPLC. The extraction results indicated that CHADA shown has better extraction behavior for U(VI) compared to TOCPDA. In addition, CHADA coated HPLC column was examined for the retention behaviour of U(VI), Th(IV), and Nd(III). Computation studies based on density functional theory (DFT) were carried out to understand the complexing behaviour of U(VI), Pu(IV) and Sr(II) with CHADMA and TMCPDA.