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Physical and chemical characterization of cerium(IV) oxide nanoparticles

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Abstract

Chemical composition, size and structure of the nanoparticle are required to describe nanoceria. Nanoparticles of similar size and Ce(III) content might exhibit different chemical behaviour due to their differences in structure. A simple and direct procedure based on affordable techniques for all the laboratories is presented in this paper. The combination of Raman and UV-vis spectroscopy and particle impact coulometry (PIC) allows the characterization of nanoceria of small size from 4 to 65 nm at a concentration from micromolar to nanomolar, a concentration range suitable for the analysis of lab-prepared or commercial nanoparticle suspensions, but too high for most analytical purposes aimed at nanoparticle monitoring. While the PIC limits of size detection are too high to observe small nanoparticles unless catalytic amplification is used, the method provides a simple means to study aggregation of nanoparticles in the media they are needed to be dispersed for each application. Raman spectroscopy provided information about structure of the nanoparticle, and UV-vis about their chemical behaviour against some common reducing and oxidizing agents.

To characterize nanoceria it is necessary to provide information about the shape, size and structure of the nanoparticles as well as the chemical composition

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Acknowledgments

This work has been supported by a Spanish competitive project CTQ 2015-68094-C2-1R.

The author Laura Sánchez-García acknowledges a postdoctoral research grant co-funded by the Fundación Agencia Aragonesa para la Investigación y Desarrollo de Aragón (ARAID) and Ramiro Córdova thanks the Instituto Universitario de Investigación en Ciencias Ambientales de Aragón (IUCA), Zaragoza University, for the scholarship “Apoyo a la Investigación” awarded for the 2014 academic year. We thank Diamond Light Source for access to beamline 18 (SP-11695) that contributed to the results presented here.

Thanks to Dr Mario Pérez Riera and Dr Francisco José Ruíz Blasco of the “Departamento de Matemáticas, Área de Análisis Matemático” who had helped us with Fourier transform smoothing of the chronoamperograms, without their help no collision events could have been ever seen in our lab. We also want to thank Dr Margarita Aznar and Dr Jesús Salafranca from the Analytical Chemistry Department of the University of Zaragoza for their help with the Raman spectra.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Analytical Spectroscopy and Sensors Group (GEAS), Environmental Sciences Institute (IUCA), Analytical Chemistry Department, University of Zaragoza, C/Cerbuna 12, 50009, Zaragoza, Spain

    Gemma Cepriá, Walvin R. Córdova, Laura Sánchez-García & Juan R. Castillo

  2. School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, Leeds, UK

    Oscar Céspedes

  3. Diamond Light Source, Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, Chilton, Didcot, OX11 0DE, UK

    Pilar Ferrer & Diego Gianolio

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  1. Gemma Cepriá
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  2. Walvin R. Córdova
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  3. Oscar Céspedes
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  4. Laura Sánchez-García
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Correspondence to Gemma Cepriá.

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Cepriá, G., Córdova, W.R., Céspedes, O. et al. Physical and chemical characterization of cerium(IV) oxide nanoparticles. Anal Bioanal Chem 408, 6589–6598 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-016-9771-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-016-9771-x

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