Speciation of copper in the abstraction of nano copper with a room temperature ionic liquid (RTIL) (1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate [C 4mim][PF 6]) has been studied by X-ray absorption near edge structural (XANES) and extended X-ray absorption fine structural (EXAFS) spectroscopies in the present work. The least-square fits of the XANES spectra suggest that nano CuO (79%) and Cu(II) complex (Cu(II)-IL) (21%) are the main copper species in the RTIL. The fitted EXAFS spectra show that the Cu-O (1st shell) bond distance is 2.08 ? with a coordination number (CN) of 2.6. In the second shells of copper, the average bond distance of Cu-Cu is 2.99 ? with a CN of 5.1. ? 2007 American Institute of Physics.
