Cerium complexes naturally occurring

Separation Processes. The product of ore digestion contains the rare earths in the same ratio as that in which they were originally present in the ore, with few exceptions, because of the similarity in chemical properties. The various processes for separating individual rare earth from naturally occurring rare-earth mixtures essentially utilize small differences in acidity resulting from the decrease in ionic radius from lanthanum to lutetium. The acidity differences influence the solubiUties of salts, the hydrolysis of cations, and the formation of complex species so as to allow separation by fractional crystallization, fractional precipitation, ion exchange, and solvent extraction. In addition, the existence of tetravalent and divalent species for cerium and europium, respectively, is useful because the chemical behavior of these ions is markedly different from that of the trivalent species. 

Cerium(iv).— The acid-promoted redox decomposition and cerium(iv) oxidation of the tris(oxalato)cobaltate(in) ion have been studied in aqueous acid media. In IM sulphuric acid, in the absence of oxidant, there occurs an induction period prior to the internal redox decomposition of the anion. On addition of the cerium(iv), however, there results an increased rate of reduction of the cobalt(ni) centre in contrast to the behaviour of this oxidant to M(C20 ) complexes where M = Cr, Rh, or Ir. The induction in the add-catalysed decomposition is consistent with the formation of a unidentate oxalato-complex-ion which may be the main route towards the stepwise reduction to yield Co and COg. From spectral studies on the total expected absorbance values on mixing, it would appear that the cerium(iv) ion is involved in the pre-equilibrium formation of a dinuclear species which might undergo internal electron transfer with reduction to cerium(in). A possible mechanism in this system may then be written as shown in Scheme 5 (ox = C2O4 -). The variations in rate of the one-electron redox reactions of this type are dependent on the nature of the activated complex, which may differ from one metal centre to another in respect of the number of protons and sulphate anions incorporated. 

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