SYSTEMATICS OF HYDROLYSIS AND CARBONATE COMPLEXATION CONSTANTS OF IONS OF TRANSURANIUM ELEMENTS

A simple hard sphere model was presented to study the systematics of h ydrolysis and carbonate complexation constants of transuranium ions. I n the model, an octahedral structure is assumed, and a central transur anium ion and its ligands of water molecule, hydroxide ion and carbona te ion are all treated as hard spheres. The stability constants are ca lculated from the Coulomb interactions of the hard spheres by taking a parameter set for the effective radii and electric charges of the har d spheres. The model is applied to the hydrolysis, carbonate and hydro xycarbonate species, and the systematic behavior of the stability cons tants is discussed. Such models may be useful to check the experimenta l data and to predict the unknown data from a systematic point of view .