A REVIEW OF THE BASIC CHEMISTRY AND RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN TRIVALENT F-ELEMENTS SEPARATIONS

Among the most difficult of separations of metal ions are the intra- and intergroup separation of lanthanides and trivalent actinides. Yet environmental concerns related to radioactivity, and new high-tech developments which have increased the demand for pure lanthanides have combined to foster a greater need for effective procedures to attain these separations. The most recent review which concentrated on this problem is now nearly 20 years old. While the methods developed over the preceeding 50-60 years of research are still in use, new understanding and some promising new methods are currently under development. The present manuscript is partly a tutorial of the basic chemical principles leading to successful separations, and partly a review of the results of the past 10-12 years on the separation of tri-valent lanthanides and actinides, both intra-, and intergroup.