Radiolytic Stability of TODGA: Characterization of Degraded Samples under Different Experimental Conditions

The radiolytic stability of TODGA (N, N, N’, N’-tetraoctyldiglycolamide), which is considered one of the extractans with higher possibilities to be applied for nuclear hydrometallurgical partitioning processes, has been studied in this paper against gamma radiation. Several irradiation experiments have been carried out both, at different experimental conditions and solvent formulations, to know their influence on the ligand stability. After qualitative analysis by HPLC-MS, the identified degradation products were synthesised to verify the assigned structures, to test their extraction properties, and to quantify them in all degraded TODGA samples.