Morphing crystals could harness evaporation as a source of energy

This is the claim of an international team, co-led by researchers at Strathclyde University, who used tripeptides to create crystals that are simultaneously stiff and morphable. According to Strathclyde University, the materials are composed of three-dimensional patterns of nanoscale pores where water tightly binds, and these pores are interspersed with a molecular network of stiff and flexible regions.

Study claims evaporation could provide 70 per cent of US energy

When humidity is lowered and reaches a critical value, the water escapes from the pores, leading to a contraction of the interconnected network. This results in the crystals temporarily losing their ordered patterns until humidity is restored and the crystals regain their original shape. This newly designed process can be repeated and is said to give rise to an efficient method of harvesting evaporation energy to perform mechanical work.

The research, conducted with the Advanced Science Research Center at the Graduate Center, CUNY (City University of New York), has been published in Nature Materials.