Innovation

  1. Plastic

    U-M team recycles previously unrecyclable plastic

    PVC, or polyvinyl chloride, is one of the most-produced plastics in the U.S. and the third-highest by volume worldwide. Until recently, it had a zero percent recycling rate in the U.S. But scientists at U-M recently discovered how to chemically recycle PVC into usable material.

  2. D. Dan and Betty Kahn portrait with graphic of new hospital

    New hospital to be named for D. Dan and Betty Kahn

    The D. Dan and Betty Kahn Health Care Pavilion is scheduled to open in fall 2025. The $920-million facility will include 264 private inpatient rooms, a neurosciences center, specialty cardiovascular and thoracic care services, and much more.

  3. Graphic depiction of researchers battling childhood cancer

    The undergrads who are battling a mysterious childhood cancer

    LSA and U-M undergrads, as well as recent graduates, work in a lab at Michigan Medicine to find a cure for the always-fatal DIPG brain cancer. Undaunted by statistics, they strive to create a path to survival.

  4. #end gun violence in chalk on the street

    U-M reports record $1.71B in annual research volume

    Total research volume at the University increased by 8.4% in FY ’22, fueling innovations in global health, Great Lakes water quality, firearm violence, and driverless vehicle technologies. FY ’22 also marked a record high of $973M in federally sponsored research expenditures.

  5. Laser engineer Lauren Weinberg, research scientist John Nees and research engineer Galina Kalinchenko pose for photos while working on the ZEUS laser at the NSF ZEUS laser facility in a Michigan Engineering lab. Image credit: Marcin Szczepanski, Michigan Engineering

    First light at the most powerful laser in the U.S.

    Michigan Engineering recently fired up the Zetawatt-Equivalent Ultrashort pulse laser System, promising new developments in medicine, electronics, and national security. Funded by the National Science Foundation, ZEUS will explore the physics of the quantum universe.

  6. Michigan Engineering alum Linda Zhang.

    Engineering tough: Taking the F-150 electric

    As chief nameplate engineer for the F-150 Lightning, Linda Zhang, BSE EE ’96/MSE CE ’98/MBA ’11, has impacted the design, development, and delivery of the electric vehicle, as well as the creation of its new manufacturing plant and Ford’s marketing campaign.

  7. Wind turbine

    U-M study: Local renewable energy employment can fully replace U.S. coal jobs nationwide

    As of 2019, coal-fired electricity generation directly employed nearly 80,000 workers. A new U-M study quantifies—for the first time—the technical feasibility and costs of replacing those coal jobs with local wind and solar employment nationwide.

  8. The semiconductor nanosheets in the water-cooled copper mount turn an infrared laser pulse into an effectively unipolar terahertz pulse. The team says that their terahertz emitter could be made to fit inside a matchbox. Image credit: Christian Meineke, Huber Lab, University of Regensburg

    Emulating impossible ‘unipolar’ laser pulses paves the way for processing quantum information

    A laser pulse that sidesteps the inherent symmetry of light waves could manipulate quantum information, potentially bringing us closer to room temperature quantum computing. The study could also accelerate conventional computing

  9. graphic of pig intestine infection

    21 research takeways from ’21

    Pandemic-related stories may dominate the news, but these other significant findings and developments at U-M also deserve attention.

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