Sorption of lanthanides assisted by swelling transitions in Brodie graphite oxide: XRD study.

The project suggests to study BGO immersed in solutions of various salts with different size of ions in methanol and acetonitrile. At ambient temperature BGO immersed in acetonitrile or methanol is intercalated by single layer of solvent while at lower temperature two-layer solvent intercalation occurs Therefore, if pure solvents are replaced with solutions, some ions which are too large for insertion into interlayers at ambient temperature are expected to penetrate and sorb inside of interlayers at low temperature. In this case, the swelling transition is expected to be either partly reversible or irreversible due to sorption of ions from solution at low temperature. The size of the solvent-filled interlayers can be evaluated using XRD. The effect of ion size and concentration on swelling transitions will be studied. In case of success, new method to separate precious lanthanide elements using selective sorption inside of BGO inter-layers will be demonstrated.