Maryline G. Ferrier, Benjamin W. Stein, Enrique R. Batista, John M. Berg, Eva R. Birnbaum, Jonathan W. Engle, Kevin D. John, Stosh A. Kozimor, Juan S. Lezama Pacheco, Lindsay N. Redman

Metal aquo ions occupy central roles in all equilibria that define metal complexation in natural environments. These complexes are used to establish thermodynamic metrics (i.e., stability constants) for predicting metal binding, which are essential for defining critical parameters associated with aqueous speciation, metal chelation, in vivo transport, and so on. As such, establishing the fundamental chemistry of the actinium(III) aquo ion (Ac-aquo ion, Ac(H2O) x(3+)) is critical for current efforts to develop (225)Ac [t1/2 = 10.0(1) d] as a targeted anticancer therapeutic agent. However, given the limited amount of actinium available for study and its high radioactivity, many aspects of actinium chemistry remain poorly defined. We overcame these challenges using the longer-lived (227)Ac [t1/2 = 21.772(3) y] isotope and report the first characterization of this fundamentally important Ac-aquo coordination complex. Our X-ray absorption fine structure study revealed 10.9 ± 0.5 water molecules directly coordinated to the Ac(III) cation with an Ac-OH2O distance of 2.63(1) Å. This experimentally determined distance was consistent with molecular dynamics density functional theory results that showed (over the course of 8 ps) that Ac(III) was coordinated by 9 water molecules with Ac-OH2O distances ranging from 2.61 to 2.76 Å. The data is presented in the context of other actinide(III) and lanthanide(III) aquo ions characterized by XAFS and highlights the uniqueness of the large Ac(III) coordination numbers and long Ac-OH2O bond distances.