Biological reduction-deposition and luminescent properties of nanostructured CePO4@NaCe(SO4)2(H2O) and CePO4

•A new method was found to synthesize CePO4@NaCe(SO4)2(H2O) and CePO4 nanoparticles.•CePO4@NaCe(SO4)2(H2O) nanoparticles have good luminescent properties.•Size and luminescent properties of two samples have been studied and compared.

Nano-sized CePO4@NaCe(SO4)2(H2O) and CePO4 with hexagonal phase have been prepared by simply varying the reactant P/Ce molar ratio in bacterial liquid. The phase composition of two samples was checked via Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), energy dispersive analysis of X-rays (EDS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analyses, displaying the presence of CePO4@NaCe(SO4)2(H2O) and CePO4 with average crystallite size are 32.34 and 15.61 nm, respectively. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images show that nano-clusters and sphere-like in shape with a narrow diameter distribution were observed in two samples. The transmission electron microscopy (TEM) photographs further indicate obtained CePO4@NaCe(SO4)2(H2O) and CePO4 nanoparticles correspond to nanosheets and nanorods, respectively. The emission spectra of CePO4@NaCe(SO4)2(H2O) and CePO4 display a broad band of 300–380 nm range with the strongest emission at 342 nm in the violet region.