A Trophy for the Chemistry Cabinet

The search for cleaner, low temperature nuclear fuels has produced a shock result for a team of experts at The University of Nottingham. Working with experts in the Photon Science Institute at The University of Manchester, and with funding from the Royal Society, European Research Council, and Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council , the team last year succeeded in creating a stable version of  a ‘trophy molecule’. For the first time they prepared a terminal uranium nitride compound which was stable at room temperature and which could be stored in jars in crystallized or powder form¹.

Now they have discovered that the bonding within this molecule is far different than expected. Remarkably their findings have shown that it behaves in much the same way as its counterparts in the well-known transitional metals such as chromium, molybdenum and tungsten.

The research, carried out by PhD student David King, which could help in the extraction and separation of the two to three per cent of highly radioactive material in nuclear waste, was led by Professor Stephen Liddle in the School of Chemistry ².

Professor Liddle said: “The major motivation for doing the first piece of research was to understand the nature of the chemical bonding of uranium. Now we have extended the series to enable meaningful comparisons; the ‘shock’ is that whereas the bonding would be expected to be very different to commonly known and well understood transition metal analogues the bonding is in fact very similar. This is a real surprise and could have an effect on nuclear clean up because differences in chemical bonding are exploited in the separation processes.

Findings published  in (1) Science and (2) Nature chemistry