Pertechnetate, the most stable form of the radionuclide 99Tc in aerobic aqueous systems, is a hazardous anion present
in nuclear
waste. Its high mobility in water makes the remediation of the anion
challenging. In the past decade, significant effort has been placed
into finding materials capable of adsorbing this species. Here, we
present the synthesis and high-resolution crystal structure of the
coordination polymer [Ag(2,4′-bipyridine)]NO3, which
is capable of sequestering perrhenatea pertechnetate surrogatethrough
anion exchange to form another new coordination polymer, [Ag(2,4′-bipyridine)]ReO4. Both the beginning and end structures were solved by single-crystal
X-ray diffraction and the adsorption reaction was monitored through
inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectroscopy and UV–vis
spectroscopy. The exchange reaction follows a pseudo-second-order
mechanism and the maximum adsorption capacity is 764 mg ReO4/g [Ag(2,4′-bipyridine)]NO3, one of the highest
recorded for a coordination polymer or metal–organic framework.
A solvent-mediated recrystallization mechanism was determined by monitoring
the ion-exchange reaction by scanning electron microscopy–energy-dispersive
spectroscopy and powder X-ray diffraction.