The antimicrobial efficacy of biosynthesized nanostructured ceria

Biosynthesis of metal oxide nanoparticles is an emerging eco-friendly approach. Currently, researchers have been developing various nanomaterials with effective antimicrobial properties with less toxicity to humans. Here, nanostructured ceria or cerium oxide nanoparticles of average crystallite size ∼5 nm are synthesized by a chemical co-precipitation method using cerium nitrate hexa hydrate and sodium hydroxide as starting materials. The most fascinating bio-material known to man, deoxyribo nucleic acid (DNA) is used as a biological capping agent to get well dispersed nanoparticles. The structural and morphological characterization of prepared samples was conducted using X-ray diffraction, high resolution transmission electron microscopy and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The synthesized cerium oxide nanoparticle showed potential antibacterial activity against both bacteria and fungi under investigation. The results also showed that the synthesized nanoceria can be used to inhibit the growth of several fungi which will be useful for a number of applications in the biomedical field.