Department of chemistry, Graduate school of science
I am doing basic chemical research on astatine （At, Z=85), one of the elements in the halogen family. Recently, high cancer therapeutic efficacy using α-rays has been reported, and 211At is expected to be used as an α-ray emitting nuclide for this purpose. To understand the chemical properties of At, I am studying halogen bonds, which are one of the chemical bonds formed by At. Halogen bond is one of the intermolecular interactions formed by halogens, which has recently been used in crystal engineering and organic chemistry. Halogen bonding becomes stronger the heavier the atom is, so we can expect At to form strong halogen bonds. Generally, chemical bonding is analyzed by spectroscopic methods, but At is available only in trace amounts, making experiments difficult. The ultimate goal of my research is to determine the strength of halogen bonding in At using chromatography, which can be done at trace levels.