Mutual separation of trivalent lanthanide and actinides by hydrophilic and lipophilic multidentate diamides

Not only the separation of actinide (An) from lanthanide (Ln) but also the separation of Am and Cm are required. Although there includes difficulty of the mutual separation of these metals, we take the solvent extraction method using lipophilic and hydrophilic diamides and aminopolyacetic acid dissolved in both aqueous and organic phases, in order to get high separation factors. It is clear that combination of two ligands (TODGA as an extractant and DTPA or DTPAbisamide as a masking agent) give around and higher 10 of SF for Nd/Am and Nd/Cm, and combination of two ligands (DGA and DOODA ligands) give around 2 of SF for Am/Cm in column separation. (author)