A novel hydrazide-based selective and sensitive optical chemosensor for the detection of Ni2+ ions: applications in live cell imaging, molecular logic gates and smart phone-based analysis

A novel hydrazide-based optical sensor for Ni²⁺ ions was designed, which can be applied for recovery of contaminated water samples, smart phone-based analysis and live cell imaging.

A dual-mode highly selective and sensitive Schiff base chemosensor for fluorescent colorimetric detection of Ni2+ and colorimetric detection of Cu2

In this paper, a novel flexible Schiff base chemosensor N'-(2-hydroxy-3-methoxybenzylidene)-2-(benzamido)benzohydrazide (L) has been designed, synthesised and characterised by 1H-NMR, IR spectroscopy, ESI-MS spectrometry and single crystal XRD analysis. A significant fluorescence enhancement of L was observed only in the presence of Ni2+ ions with a detection limit of 3.64 μM whereas Cu2+ induced fluorescence quenching, although both the metals showed colorimetric responses in methanol-Tris-HCl buffer (10 mM, pH 7.2) solution (1 : 1, v/v). The single crystal structure of L-Cu2+ has also been determined. No major interference by the other effective background cations (Fe3+, Fe2+, Co2+, Zn2+, Cd2+, Hg2+, Pb2+, Cr3+, Ag+, Al3+ and Mn2+) was observed even at a higher concentration of analytes. The experimental results were further supported by DFT studies. The chemosensor L can be applied to the formation of binary logical devices, recovery of contaminated water samples and living intracellular media.