Theses and Dissertations Collection

Metal residues are found widely distributed in products and waste streams and recovery and detection of these materials is desirable. This thesis investigated the detection of rare earths in different matrices and determination of binding constants for characterizing N,N-diethylphenylarylazothioformamide (ATF) ligand. Low level fluorometric dectection of rare earths was investigated for Nd, Sm, and Eu in place of UV/Vis using the arsenazo-III ligand. Unfortunately, fluorometric detection was comparable to UV/Vis levels of detection and quantification. Metal-binding ligands, such as ATF, are a possible solution for purification of materials and recovery of valuable metals. However, binding of ATF to metals must be characterized to engineer it‘s affinity to metals. Ligand characterization showed cooperative binding between the redox active ATF ligand and Cu(I) salts. Characteristic UV/Vis and 1H NMR models were coupled for more reliable binding constant determination. In general, coupling two measurement methods increases the reliability of determined parameters.