An intramolecular charge transfer (ICT) based chemosensor for silver ion using 4-methoxy-N-(( thiophen-2-yl)methyl)benzenamine

4-Methoxy-N-((thiophen-2-yl)methyl) benzenamine was found to be a highly selective chemosensor for Ag+ ion in methanol-water (1 : 1 v/v) mixture over other metal ions such as Na+, K+, Li+, Cu+, Ba2+, Cd2+, Co2+, Cu2+, Fe2+, Hg2+, Mn2+, Ni2+, Pb2+ and Zn2+ with a limit of detection (LOD) is 5.0 x 10(-6) mol L-1. Upon binding to Ag+ ion, a strong fluorescent enhancement is observed which is attributed to an increase in intramolecular charge transfer (ICT). The proposed mechanism is strongly supported by TD-DFT calculations.