Chemical pulse animates lifelike colour-changing system

A chemical mixture that pulses purple and pink for several hours could be a step towards lifelike systems that can respond to their surroundings. Thomas Hermans from the University of Strasbourg, France, and his team use a molecular ‘fuel’ to drive a colour-changing perylene diimide (PDI) derivative into steadily diminishing oscillations. ‘When you find the right balance between the system wanting to assemble and adding a fuel that breaks up the assembly, then you can find this window where oscillations occur,’ Hermans explains.