Salophen Anchored Silver Nanoparticle as Nanoprobe Designed for Selective Sensing and Antibacterial Activity

Abstract Indeed, considerable efforts have been made in the domain of silver nanoparticles, including the construction and wide‐ranging applications. This work involves the synthesis and characterization of salophen anchored silver nanoparticles (AgNPs), and its utilization for selective detection of Fe 2+ and Cu 2+ ions in DMSO. These AgNPs were synthesized by the reduction of Ag + ions with salophen ligand, and were characterized by different techniques which include UV‐visible, fluorescence, FTIR, SEM, EDX, TEM, PXRD, DLS, and zeta potential. The negative zeta potential value of −19.6 mV evidenced the stability of the AgNPs. These AgNPs were found to sense Fe 2+ and Cu 2+ ions selectively in DMSO solution at various concentrations. Instant color change from olive to brown as well as olive to light olive was observed while detecting Fe 2+ and Cu 2+ ions by the nanoprobe, respectively. UV‐visible and fluorescence spectroscopic investigations were carried out to establish the sensing ability of the nanoprobe. Additionally, AgNPs revealed promising antibacterial activity selectively against gram‐negative bacteria over gram‐positive bacteria. Thus, our approach opens up a new track to design novel and operative functionalized nanomaterials for real‐life sensing and biomedical applications.