Abstract

Detection of metal ions gained more interest among researchers due to their biological and chemical nature. Chemosensors play a vital role in metal ion detection. In this research work, the probe namely (E)-3-((2-(4-(2-oxo-2H-chromen-3-yl)oxazol-2-yl)hydrazono) methyl)quinolin-2(1H)-one (QOC) has been synthesized from quinoline and coumarin derivatives in chloroform-ethanol medium and characterized by using various spectroscopic methods. The sensing nature of QOC with various metal ions was examined using various light-based spectroscopic methods and its selectivity towards Fe3+ ion was confirmed. The probe QOC was used to identify Fe3+ ion with the detection limit of 5.1410 ×10–12 M. Further anticancer nature of QOC and QOC-Fe3+ was examined by MTT assay with human cervical cancer (HeLa) and human lung cancer (A549) cells, in which the compounds showed noteworthy activity. © 2025 Elsevier B.V.