Critical 4f rare earths and minor 5f actinides are typically found in +3 oxidation state, which confers them very similar chemistries. Separating these elements from one another in high purity and in high yield is essential to the success many clean energy technologies that rely on rare earths, or on improving the safety and efficacy of the nuclear fuel cycle. Their almost indistinguishable chemistry however makes such separation extremely difficult. Consequently, designing advanced separations schemes has been traditionally a slow and expensive process. Our team is exploring new ways to leverage the development of modern data-science and automation techniques to accelerate f-element separation science design though the development of effective computational and experimental workflows that help chemists navigate the astronomically large chemical and process spaces in search for innovative solutions. In this talk, we will share our recent progress on this front.
Copyright. All Rights Reserved.