A low cost yet highly sensitive silver nanoprobe for naked eye detection and determination of bisulphate (HSO4-) in a few real samples

[Display omitted] •A silver nanoprobe having total water compatibility.•A simple and economical design strategy using an already reported Schiff base as a Reducing and capping agent.•Wide pH window (3–13).•Successful qualitative and quantitative determination of a very important janus-faced analyte like bisulphate from it’s a few commercial samples.•A fairly long stability of four months of these silver nanoprobes. Herein, we report a simple and economical yet highly sensitive and efficient silver nanoresonators based protocol for naked eye detection of a janus-faced ion like bisulphate from its two real samples in real time. The SEM-TEM, DLS, AFM and EDAX alongwith spectroscopic studies have further substantiated our observation in the same context. The quantification of bisulphate in one of its real sample through UV–Vis spectroscopy using these nanoprobes as indicator has also been carried out successfully. The Raman measurements have clearly indicated the rich SERS potential of these silver nanoresonators.