The antioxidant therapy to preserve
residual hearing is relatively
recent, and the search for effective antioxidants is still ongoing.
Though nanoceria has shown promising radical-scavenging capability,
improving its antioxidant ability and the dispersion stability of
its nanofluid, which is critical to the desired site, i.e., cochlea,
still remains a major challenge. The objective of the present work
is to study the radical-scavenging capability of poly(ethylene glycol)
(PEG)-coated CeO
2
and Ce
0.5
Zr
0.5
O
2
nanoparticles in water and the biologically relevant fluid
(PBS buffer). Nanoparticles in the size range of 4.0–9.0 nm
are synthesized using the coprecipitation method and characterized
using suitable techniques. The scavenging and dispersion stability
of the synthesized nanofluid are analyzed using a UV–vis spectrophotometer.
It is found that the addition of PEG during the synthesis process
promoted the generation of finer nanoparticles with a narrow size
distribution and the doping of zirconium produced a large number of
defects in the crystallite structure. The PEG coating over the nanoparticles
improved the dispersion stability of nanofluids without affecting
their surface reactivity, and it is found to be 94 and 80% in water
and PBS, respectively, at 500 μM and 60 min, which is maintained
till 90 min. The highest scavenging of hydroxyl radicals by PEG-coated
Ce
0.5
Zr
0.5
O
2
is found to be 60%,
which is significantly superior to that of CeO
2
. The scavenging
capability is found to be increased with the concentration of nanoparticles,
showing the best scavenging activity at 190 and 150 μM for PEG-coated
CeO
2
and Ce
0.5
Zr
0.5
O
2
,
respectively, and the scavenging in water is at par with that of PBS,
indicating that these nanoparticles are suitable to be used in sites
where a biologically relevant fluid is present, e.g., the cochlea.
It is proposed that PEG-coated Ce
0.5
Zr
0.5
O
2
having an average size of ∼ 4 nm can be a potential
antioxidant in relevant biomedical applications.