CCNY engineer Xi Chen and partners create new shape-changing crystals

(City College of New York) Imagine harnessing evaporation as a source of energy or developing next generation actuators and artificial muscles for a broad array of applications. These are the new possibilities with the creation by an international team of researchers, led by The City College of New York's Xi Chen and his co-authors at the CUNY Advanced Science Research Center, of shape-changing crystals that enable energy transfer from evaporation to mechanical motion.