Role of Pullulan in preparation of ceria nanoparticles and investigation of their biological activities

Throughout this work, a facile, environmental friendly, and green method is delineated for preparing ceria nanoparticles (CNPs), which utilizes nontoxic and renewable degraded polysaccharide polymer including pullulan as a natural matrix. Pullulan behaves as a suitable stabilizing (capping) agent for CNPs that are effectively formed at various high temperatures, while they are structurally analyzed through different techniques such as TGA/DTG, XRD, FESEM, and FTIR instruments. This procedure was found to be comparable to the ones that were acquired from conventional preparation methods that employ hazardous materials, which confirms this approach to be an exquisite alternative in preparing CNPs through the benefit of bioorganic materials. The in vitro cytotoxicity studies on Neuro2A cells have mentioned nontoxic particles in a range of concentrations (0.97-125 mu g/ml) and thus, we reckon that the prepared particular CNPs will have persistent utilization in various fields of biology and medicine. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.