“…Metal oxides form a class of special interest among inorganic nanoparticles. Some primary examples are oxides of cerium [11][12][13][14][15], iron [4,5,[16][17][18][19], or zirconium [20][21][22][23][24]. Aqueous dispersions of such metal oxide particles exhibit some common properties: i) the particles have an ordered crystalline structure, ii) the sols are typically synthesized in extremely acidic (or basic) conditions, iii) the particles are stabilized by electrostatics and are extremely sensitive to perturbations in pH, ionic strength and concentration that may dramatically modify their thermodynamic stability [1,11,20,21,[25][26][27][28][29].…”