Correspondence on “Visible-Light-Switchable Chalcone-Flavylium Photochromic Systems in Aqueous Media”

In a recent Communication in this journal, Bandyopadhyay and co-workers proposed a rational design of chalcone photoswitches that are claimed to convert into the respective flavylium cations upon irradiation with blue, green, and red light in aqueous media. Here we argue that the reported improvements on the optical/photochemical properties of the new chalcone photoswitches are not substantiated and that the proposed design and data interpretation rely on assumptions that have yet to be validated. We also identify a series of control experiments that can be performed to verify the hypotheses and better support the conclusions presented by the authors.