Although the benzimidazole moiety is a versatile heterocyclic unit that has been widely applied in optical materials and medicinal chemistry, there are few bifunctional small-molecule benzimidazole derivatives with bio-activity and fluorescence. In this work, a series of novel benzimidazole-salicylic acid molecules were designed and synthesized
their optical properties were evaluated and their potential biological application was explored. The representative compound 5q exhibited excellent fluorescence properties, displaying blue imaging in HeLa cells and zebrafish. Additionally, it exhibited high selectivity for Fe