Copper-dependent enzymes play an important role in the biological functions of the human body, plants, various micro/macro-organisms and animals. However, extensive and excessive consumption of Cu leads to damage of DNA strands, irregulating antioxidant enzyme function, brain damage, and other acute diseases like fever, nausea, headache, vomiting, diarrhea, etc. Herein, we synthesized water-soluble thioglycolic acid (TGA) capped vanadium disulfide-based dichalcogenide quantum dots (TGA@VS2 QDs) via a facile hydrothermal method. TGA acts as the sulfur source and capping group to making QDs water-soluble. Apart from this, TGA also provides high stability to QDs by preventing agglomeration as well as improving biocompatibility properties. The present study has proposed the interaction of TGA@VS2 QDs with environmental pollutant metal ions Zn (II), Pd (II), Fe (III), Cu (II), K (I), Cr (VI), Cd (II), and Ca (II) in the aqueous solution through photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. PL study showed specific interaction towards Cu (II) using TGA@VS2 QDs. The response study was carried out in two concentrations range from 10−8 M – 10−3 M in two parts from 10−8 M – 10−5 M & 10−5 M – 10−3 M and observed the linear decrease of PL intensity. While other metal ions Zn (II), Pb (II), Fe (III), K (I), Cr (VI), Cd (II), and Ca (II) did not show a quenching process with TGA@VS2 QDs. The quenching process involved is the static in nature for Cu (II) and it was confirmed by UV–visible, PL studies and Time-correlated single-photon counting (TCSPC) with a limit of detection 50 nM.