Speciation of technetium-99 incorporated into metal oxide matrices

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This award supports Professor Lynn C. Francesconi at CUNY Hunter College to determine the chemical bonding, redox chemistry, and speciation of technetium in metal-oxide materials. Polyoxometalates (POMs) will serve as models for solid-state materials to garner critical information concerning the chemical and redox stability and speciation of 99Tc in metal oxide hosts. The specific objectives are: 1) An examination of the impact of the steric and electronic differences of the 1- and 2- Wells-Dawson POM isomers on the binding strength and redox properties of technetium. 2) A determination of the stability of a technetium-POM materials as a function of the steric and electronic features of the polyoxometalate combined with specific low valent technetium cores. 3) Development of a new approach for the reduction of pertechnetate and stabilization of the generated low valent Tc. This strategy employs tunable reduced POMs to transfer electrons to pertechnetate and stabilize the reduced Tc. A broader impact of this project will be the training of postdocs and graduate students in radiochemistry and in the handling of radioactive materials. The research will also draw on the large pool of minority students in the sciences at Hunter and CUNY to bring diversity into the pool of radiochemists. The training component of this project is enhanced through collaborations with the University of Nevada-Las Vegas and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.