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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Paul Waddell
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).
This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry, 2026An acid hydrazide-based Schiff base, N'-(4-hydroxybenzylidene)picolinohydrazide (HP), was designed and synthesized in a single-step process for the selective detection of Cu2+ ions. The structure of HP was thoroughly characterized by FTIR, 1H NMR, 13C NMR, HRMS, SCXRD and elemental analysis. The cation-sensing performance of HP was investigated using UV-Vis spectroscopy, revealing a rapid response with high selectivity and sensitivity toward Cu2+ in MeOH/H2O (6 : 4, v/v) with a 10 mM HEPES buffer at pH 7.4, with a detection limit of 8.94 µM. Job's plot analysis confirmed a 1 : 1 binding stoichiometry, with an association constant of 4.26 × 104 M−1. FESEM analysis showed distinct morphological changes upon Cu2+ coordination. The SCXRD result exhibits good agreement with DFT and TD-DFT of the probe HP. The hole–electron analysis clearly reveals locally excited (LE) characteristics for the free ligand and intramolecular charge transfer (ICT) behavior for the HP–Cu2+ complex. Furthermore, the HP probe demonstrated practical applicability for Cu2+ detection in real water samples.
Author(s): Gim J, Kowser Z, Debnath D, Prieety RS, Jahan MT, Waddell PG, Khatun MT, Munni SK, Khan MR, Islam R
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: RSC Advances
Year: 2026
Volume: 16
Issue: 5
Pages: 4473-4485
Online publication date: 20/01/2026
Acceptance date: 11/01/2026
Date deposited: 02/02/2026
ISSN (electronic): 2046-2069
Publisher: Royal Society of Chemistry
URL: https://doi.org/10.1039/d5ra06131h
DOI: 10.1039/d5ra06131h
Data Access Statement: CCDC 2515488 contains the supplementary crystallographic data for this paper.47 Supplementary information (SI) is available. See DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/d5ra06131h
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