An historic and scientific study of the properties of metal(III) tris-acetylacetonates

Abstract

Historically, metal acetylacetonates are significant since they were among the earliest metal compounds which were recognized as what later became known as coordination compounds. Additionally, they were significantly investigated during WWII as potentially useful in the separation of isotopes, especially of uranium because of their unexpected volatility. Consequently, much research was carried out over the years—a good deal of which was of suspect validity, which unfortunately cannot be checked because very little information was published on the syntheses and crystallization methods used in the preparation of the crystalline samples. Here, we report our efforts to clean the slate by reporting on those of Al(III), Mn(III), Co(III), Cr(III), Fe(III), V(III), and Ti(III). These studies were carried out with crystalline samples obtained from a wide variety of solvents and over the range 296–100 K in attempts to reproduce, verify, and correct, at times, the claims made in print. Our results, covering over 100 samples, are detailed below.