Inorganic Chemistry Communications 163 (2024) 112283 Available online 11 March 2024 1387-7003/© 2024 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Short communication Multi-characterization and antipathogenic bacterial activities of cerium doped manganese nano ferrites: Structural, and magnetic insights Abdelnaby M. Elshahawy a, * , M.S. Shalaby b, * , M. Rashad a, c , Eman O. Taha d , Ghada Abd- Elmonsef Mahmoud e a Physics Department, Faculty of Science, Assiut University, Assiut 71516, Egypt b Solid-State Physics and Accelerators Department, National Center for Radiation Research and Technology, Egyptian Atomic Energy Authority, Cairo, Egypt c Physics Department, Faculty of Science, University of Tabuk, Tabuk 71491, Saudi Arabia d Egyptian Petroleum Research Institute (EPRI), Nasr City, Cairo 11727, Egypt e Botany and Microbiology Department, Faculty of Science, Assiut University, Assiut 71516, Egypt A R T I C L E INFO Keywords: Nano ferrites Antimicrobial Magnetization Electron Paramagnetic Resonance ABSTRACT Due to the uniqueness and the variation of the ionic radius and oxidation states of the implanted transition metals within nano ferrites structure, The nano ferrites are integrated into many technologies including biomedical application the current study aims to optimize the effect of cerium-dopant on the magnetic behavior and anti- microbial properties of manganese nano ferrites. Cerium-doped manganese nano ferrites are synthesized by chemical co-precipitation method followed by thermal annealing at 500 ◦ C. and investigate the dopant effects on its magnetic behavior and antibacterial properties for biomedical applications. The cubic spinel ferrite is suc- cessfully formed and CeO 2 and Fe 2 O 3 have appeared as minor phases. The particle size is found to be 20–60 nm. The Ce 0.05 Mn 0.95 Fe 2 O 4 nano ferrite exhibits the highest saturation magnetization of about 20.47 emu/g with 118.22 Oe as coercivity. EPR factors were affected due to crystalline anisotropy that appeared inside the Ce x Mn X- 1 Fe 2 O 4 spinel ferrites nanomaterials. In comparison to chloramphenicol, cerium nanoparticles exhibited prom- ising inhibitory action against six pathogenic bacteria (Bacillus cereus, Bacillus subtilis, Micrococcus luteus, Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Serratia plymuthica). All cerium treatments showed suitable antibac- terial activities. However, the treatments of X = 0.000, X = 0.025, and X = 0.050 were the most effective. For Gram-negative bacteria, the best treatment was X = 0.025, while for Gram-positive isolates, the best treatment was X = 0.050 with MIC 5–10 µg/ml. Our finding, open the pathway to integrate cerium doped manganese nano ferrites in biomedical application including against human pathogenic bacteria. 1. Introduction Nowadays, Spinel ferrites’ materials attract many researchers due to their potential applications. They promise magnetic materials for data storage, water treatments, biomedical applications, color imaging, transformers, sensors, and drug delivery [1–7]. Typically, spinel ferrite, inverse spinel ferrite, and partially spinel ferrite are the three forms of spinel ferrite determined by the preference of cations occupancy for A and B-sites. With engineering materials, ferrites nanomaterials offer unique physical and chemical features. The synthesized parameters, doping of different cations, sintering temperature, sintered density, grain size, and distribution all affect the properties of ferrite [8–12]. The dopants in the sites of spinel structure have a significant impact on the properties of these materials. The radius of cations is the playmaker in determining the site occupancy preferences because the larger ions shifted the oxygen ions along with the diagonal and expanded the unit cell parameters. Also, the cationic distribution between sublattices can affect the properties of ferrites and hence the overall performance in varied applications [13,14]. For instance, the exploitation of structural properties of the nanoparticles from Co-Zn spinel ferrite due to the incorporation of the ions with large ionic radius into the matrix of the spinel attracted researchers [15]. By substitutional Ho 3+ on account of Fe 3+ , the optical properties of Co-Zn ferrites had been affected. On the other hand, Cr 3+ substitution into the Fe site has been studied by panda and co-workers. The magnetic coercivity was minimized due to Cr 3+ substitution due to magnetic coupling between Cr 3+ and Cr 3+ * Corresponding authors. E-mail addresses: a.elshahawy@science.aun.edu.eg (A.M. Elshahawy), moustafa.Shalaby@eaea.org.eg, phy_m_shalaby@yahoo.com (M.S. Shalaby). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Inorganic Chemistry Communications journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/inoche https://doi.org/10.1016/j.inoche.2024.112283 Received 11 October 2023; Received in revised form 21 February 2024; Accepted 8 March 2024