Publikationsrepositorium - Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf

In the advent of the 2^nd International Workshop on Advanced Techniques in Actinide Spectroscopy (ATAS 2014), held in November 2014 at HZDR, an inter-laboratory Round-Robin Test (RRT) was initiated. The main goal of the RRT is the comprehensive molecular analysis of an aqueous complexing system – U(VI)/acetate, which was selected to be independently investigated by different spectroscopic and quantum chemical methods applied by leading laboratories in actinide or geochemical research. Finally, more than 40 scientists hosted at twenty institutions in seven countries were attending this RRT, which was finally subdivided into five clusters. A representative speaker was nominated for each cluster who received the submitted raw data sets as well as the analyzed data (e.g. data transformations, background subtraction, smoothing, deconvolution…). A first reporting of the preliminary results followed by plenum discussions was given by the cluster speakers during special sessions at the ATAS workshop.
The outcome of this RRT can be considered on two levels: First, conformities as well as sources of discrepancies between the results of each cluster have to be evaluated. It was found that consistencies of the raw data by the experimental approaches are widely given. In particular, for complex set-ups such as accelerator based X-Ray absorption spectroscopy, the agreement of the raw data was surprisingly high, whereas data obtained from Luminescence spectroscopy turned out to be strongly related to the chosen acquisition parameters which were quite heterogeneously chosen by the participating experimentalists. More detailed results of the single clusters will be presented.
On the second level, the potentials and limitations of coupling different spectroscopic and, in particular, theoretical approaches for the comprehensive study of actinide molecule complexes are assessed. The additional benefit of the combined approach with respect to the exploration of the aqueous speciation of the U(VI)/acetate system will be elaborated.