doi:10.1038/s41467-017-01941-2engBryant, M.J.Skelton, J.M.Hatcher, L.E.Stubbs, C.Madrid, E.Pallipurath, A.R.Thomas, L.H.Woodall, C.H.Christensen, J.Fuertes, S.Robinson, T. P.Beavers, C.M.Teat, S.J.Warren, M.R.Pradaux-Caggiano, F.Walsh, A.Marken, F.Carbery, D.R.Parker, S.C.McKeown, N.B.Malpass-Evans, R.Carta, M.Raithby, P.R.A rapidly-reversible absorptive and emissive vapochromic Pt(II) pincer-based chemical sensorART-2017-114335Selective, robust and cost-effective chemical sensors for detecting small volatile-organic compounds (VOCs) have widespread applications in industry, healthcare and environmental monitoring. Here we design a Pt(II) pincer-Type material with selective absorptive and emissive responses to methanol and water. The yellow anhydrous form converts reversibly on a subsecond timescale to a red hydrate in the presence of parts-per-Thousand levels of atmospheric water vapour. Exposure to methanol induces a similarly-rapid and reversible colour change to a blue methanol solvate. Stable smart coatings on glass demonstrate robust switching over 10⁴ cycles, and flexible microporous polymer membranes incorporating microcrystals of the complex show identical vapochromic behaviour. The rapid vapochromic response can be rationalised from the crystal structure, and in combination with quantum-chemical modelling, we provide a complete microscopic picture of the switching mechanism. We discuss how this multiscale design approach can be used to obtain new compounds with tailored VOC selectivity and spectral responses.2017http://zaguan.unizar.es/record/14855110.1038/s41467-017-01941-2http://zaguan.unizar.es/record/148551oai:zaguan.unizar.es:148551Nature communications 8 (2017), 1800 [9 pp.]byhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess