The spectroscopic and computational study of anthracene based chemosensor - Ag+ interactions

•Synthesis of 2-(anthracen-9-ylmethylene)-N-methylhydrazine-1-carbothioamide (AMC)•The electron-dense functionalities of AMC sensor, such as thiosemicarbazone and CN, be used as binding sites for silver metal ions.•Association affinity, limits of detection, the limit of quantification, and linear ranges were determined.•The sensing mechanism was proposed on the basis of results of DFT computational calculations.