Determination of trace elements in wool fibre by instrumental neutron activation analysis and relation between trace element contents and quality of wool

Synergistic extraction of uranyl ion with 2-thenoyltrifluoroacetone (HTTA) and aliphatic amides with varying basicities, viz. dibutyl hexanamide (DBHA), dibutyloctanamide (DBOA) or dibutyldecanamide (DBDA) has been studied at various fixed temperatures of 20, 30, 40 and 50±0.1°C. Results indicate that the equilibrium constants of the organic phase addition reaction (Ks) with these amides follow their order of basicity (Kh) viz. DBHA (0.09)<0.10) H DBOA (0.13) with log Ks values of 4.91, 4.99 and 5.02, respectively. These values are much higher than those with TBP (3.8) or sulfoxides (4) as donors. This may be attributed to the existence of a resonance form of the amide, which has higher electron density on the carbonyl oxygen. The thermodynamic parameters associated with these systems evaluated by the temperature coefficient method indicate that the organic phase addition reaction with all the three amides is stabilized by both enthalpy and entropy changes as against UO ₂ ²⁺ /HTTA/TBP system, where only the enthalpy change contributes to the stabilization.