Phenomenal performance of polysaccharide based microgel-nanocomposite template for distinctive binding of picric acid in aqueous medium and cancer cell recognition

The ever-increasing use of toxic compound has caused devastating environmental and health effect. Organic pollutants like aromatic nitro compounds are the most common contaminants which are carcinogenic as well. Among the nitro aromatic compound Picric Acid is the most toxic compound which is extensively used in explosives also. A fluorescent nanocomposite ChS@ZnO has been developed using modified chitosan encapsulated ZnO nanoparticles. It has improved mechanical strength, chelation ability, cell penetration potentiality and photo catalytic activity due to the presence of ZnO NPs. ChS@ZnO has been used selectively and specifically to detect picric acid (PA) (LOD = 1.4 ppm) in aqueous medium through photoinduced electron transfer (PET) process. The detection ability of PA is due to the synergistic relationship between ChS and ZnO photocatalyst. Besides ChS@ZnO has excellent antioxidant potency and chelation ability which has been established through radical scavenging from DPPH and FRAP assays. The composite has also been used for normal and cancer cell imaging purpose. The nontoxic material shows excellent cell viability and cell imaging capacity for HT-29 and HEK293 cells.