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Aqueous Sulfate Separation by Sequestration of [(SO 4 ) 2 (H 2 O) 4 ] 4− Clusters within Highly Insoluble Imine‐Linked Bis‐Guanidinium Crystals
Author(s) -
Custelcean Radu,
Williams Neil J.,
Seipp Charles A.,
Ivanov Alexander S.,
Bryantsev Vyacheslav S.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
chemistry – a european journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.687
H-Index - 242
eISSN - 1521-3765
pISSN - 0947-6539
DOI - 10.1002/chem.201504651
Subject(s) - sulfate , aqueous solution , crystallization , solubility , chemistry , ammonium sulfate , inorganic chemistry , salt (chemistry) , lithium sulfate , crystallography , ion , chromatography , organic chemistry , ionic bonding
Abstract Selective crystallization of sulfate with a simple bis‐guanidinium ligand, self‐assembled in situ from terephthalaldehyde and aminoguanidinium chloride, was employed as an effective way to separate the highly hydrophilic sulfate anion from aqueous solutions. The resulting bis‐iminoguanidinium sulfate salt has exceptionally low aqueous solubility ( K sp =2.4×10 −10 ), comparable to that of BaSO 4 . Single‐crystal X‐ray diffraction analysis showed the sulfate anions are sequestered as [(SO 4 ) 2 (H 2 O) 4 ] 4− clusters within the crystals. Variable‐temperature solubility measurements indicated the sulfate crystallization is slightly endothermic ( ΔH cryst =3.7 kJ mol −1 ), thus entropy driven. The real‐world utility of this crystallization‐based approach for sulfate separation was demonstrated by removing up to 99 % of sulfate from seawater in a single step.