The effect of annealing in air on the physicochemical properties of CeF3 nanoparticles produced by pulsed electron evaporation

Abstract

The present work continues to investigate the physicochemical characteristics of CeF3 nanopowder (NP) produced using the method of pulsed electron beam evaporation (PEBE) in vacuum. The resulting NP was isothermally annealed in air at the temperature of 200, 300 and 500 °C for 30 minutes. XRD showed that the cubic phase CeO2 formed in NP CeF3after annealing at the temperature of 500 °C. The intensity of photoluminescence of NP CeF3 decreased non-monotonically with an increase in the annealing temperature, the appearance of the oxide phase CeO2led to an increase in the intensity of photoluminescence. The paramagnetic response of the NP decreased after annealing. The addition of not annealed NP CeF3 to tumor culture HeLa and non-neoplastic Vero culture resulted in a 20–35% reduction in cell viability at all NP concentrations in the aqueous suspension. The obtained data show the low cytotoxicity of NP CeF3to tumor and non-tumor cells. Improved texture parameters indicate the prospect of using CeF3 as a nanocontainer to deliver various dosage forms in biomedicine.