Spectroscopic investigation of the covalence of An(III) complexes with tetraethylcarboxamidopyridine.

In this work, we report a combined NMR spectroscopic and time-resolved laser fluorescence spectroscopic (TRLFS) study of the complexation of N,N,N',N'-tetraethyl-2,6-carboxamidopyridine (Et-Pic) with Ln(III) (La, Sm, Eu, and Lu), Y(III) and An(III) (Am and Cm). The focal point of this study was the metal-ligand interaction in the [M(Et-Pic)3]3+ (M = An and Ln) complexes. The NMR analyses found slight differences between the An(III)-N and Ln(III)-N interactions in contrast to the similar properties of the Am(III)-O and Ln(III)-O interactions. These results were supported by TRLFS which shows that the 1 : 3 Cm(III) complex is by one order of magnitude more stable than the respective Eu(III) complex. Thus, the ligand's selectivity lies in between those of pure N- and O-donor ligands. The selectivity results from a small partial covalent bonding between the An(III) ions and Et-Pic.