Optical spectroscopic fingerprints of several uranium phosphates relevant for environmental sustainability have been determined. The studied minerals contain uranium(VI) cation coordination centers linked to phosphate functional groups and water molecules. Easy and fast identification of these minerals in their bulk state is possible by using either Raman, infrared, optical, or photoluminescence spectroscopy. Simple density functional theory vibrational modeling is presented to identify the main vibrational lines. These affordable methods of spectroscopy can be readily employed in optical remote sensing to identify uranyl species in groundwater, soil, or other geologic samples and in biological specimen for the purpose of tracking radionuclide transport, pollution, and of soluble uranium remediation by uranyl phosphates precipitation.

Establishing a molecular-level understanding of enantioselectivity and chiral resolution at the organic-inorganic interfaces is a key challenge in the field of heterogeneous catalysis. As a model system, we investigate the adsorption geometry of serine on Cu{110} using a combination of low-energy electron diffraction (LEED), scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and near-edge X-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS) spectroscopy. The chirality of enantiopure chemisorbed layers, where serine is in its deprotonated (anionic) state, is expressed at three levels: (i) the molecules form dimers whose orientation with respect to the substrate depends on the molecular chirality, (ii) dimers of L- and D-enantiomers aggregate into superstructures with chiral (-1 ∓2; 4 0) lattices, respectively, which are mirror images of each other, and (iii) small islands have elongated shapes with the dominant direction depending on the chirality of the molecules. Dimer and superlattice formation can be explained in terms of intra- and interdimer bonds involving carboxylate, amino, and β-OH groups. The stability of the layers increases with the size of ordered islands. In racemic mixtures, we observe chiral resolution into small ordered enantiopure islands, which appears to be driven by the formation of homochiral dimer subunits and the directionality of interdimer hydrogen bonds. These islands show the same enantiospecific elongated shapes those as in low-coverage enantiopure layers.