Facile method for fabrication of surfactant-free concentrated CeO2 sols

We report a facile method for fabrication of highly concentrated electrostatically stabilized colloidal solutions containing ultra-small cerium (IV) oxide crystallites having a narrow size distribution (3-5 nm according to x-ray diffraction, and 10-30 nm according to dynamic light scattering). The proposed method comprises hydrothermal treatment of ceric ammonium nitrate aqueous solutions having concentrations over 0.2 M, in the temperature range of 80-100 °C, and the formation of nanoceria sediments, which can be easily peptized in both protic (water, isopropanol) and aprotic (DMF) media, forming stable and transparent CeO2 sols.