A simple method for the preparation of CeO2 with high antioxidant activity and wide application range

Abstract Cerium oxide (CeO2) is a well-known antioxidant with the ability to scavenge reactive oxygen species due to its unique electronic structure and chemical properties. Although many methods to enhance the antioxidant activity of CeO2 have been reported, its antioxidant activity is still not high enough, and some enhancement effects are limited by the material concentration. There are also some CeO2 obtained with high antioxidant activity at high concentrations, which is not conducive to the application of biomedicine. Therefore, it is urgent to obtain CeO2 material with low cell cytotoxicity, high antioxidant activity and wide application range. In this work, rod-like metal organic framework derived CeO2 (CeO2-MOF) was prepared by a simple method. Compared with the CeO2 nanorods prepared by hydrothermal method, it shows better antioxidant activity compared with the CeO2 nanorods prepared by hydrothermal method. Moreover, the advantage of CeO2-MOF’s antioxidant activity is not affected by the hydroxyl radical and material concentrations The reason why CeO2-MOF has higher antioxidant activity should be attributed to its higher Ce3+ content and larger specific surface area. In addition, CeO2-MOF also exhibits low cytotoxicity to HeLa cells and PC12 cells in vitro. The strategy of using MOF as a structural and compositional material to create CeO2 provides a new method to explore highly efficient and biocompatible CeO2 for practical applications.