P u ls e d N e u tr o n D if fr a c tio n S tu d ie s o n L a n t h a n i d e ( I I I ) H y d r a tio n in A q u e o u s P e r c h lo r a te S o lu tio n s T. Yamaguchi, S. Tanaka, H. Wakita, M. Misawa1, I. Okada2, A. K. Soper3, and W. S. Howells3 Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Fukuoka University, Nanakuma, Jonan-ku, Fukuoka 814-01, Japan Z. Naturforsch. 46a, 84-88 (1991); received August 1, 1990Dedicated to Dr. Karl Heinzinger on the occasion of his 60th birthday Pulsed neutron diffraction measurements are reported on 2 molar aqueous solutions of Pr3 + , Nd3 + , Tb3 + , Dy3 + , Tm3 + , and Yb3+ in D20 at room temperature. The first order difference technique on isomorphous ions is used to derive the metal ion pair correlation functions in these systems. The metal-oxygen and metal-deuterium distances and the hydration numbers are deter mined. The data indicate that the hydration number changes from ~ 10 for the lighter ions to ~8 for the heavier ones in the series. The water dipole is orientated on the average at an angle of 10 ~ 20 degrees to the metal-oxygen vector; these values are significantly smaller than those found for mono-and di-valent ions. The present results are compared with other results from neutron diffraction with isotope substitution, X-ray diffraction, and extended X-ray absorption fine structure.