Chemists synthesize an improved building block for medicines

Chemists overcome a major hurdle in synthesizing a more stable form of heterocycle—a common component of most modern pharmaceuticals

08-Jul-2024 - Chemists have overcome a major hurdle in synthesizing a more stable form of heterocycle—a family of organic compounds that are a common component of most modern pharmaceuticals. The research, which could expand the toolkit available to drug developers in improving the safety profiles of ...

Better battery manufacturing: Robotic lab vets new reaction design strategy

Mixing unconventional ingredients in just the right order can make complex materials with fewer impurities

11-Apr-2024 - New chemistries for batteries, semiconductors and more could be easier to manufacture, thanks to a new approach to making chemically complex materials that researchers at the University of Michigan and Samsung’s Advanced Materials Lab have demonstrated. Their new recipes use unconventional ...

New reactor could save millions when making ingredients for plastics and rubber from natural gas

With oil production dropping, a process using natural gas is needed to avert a shortage of a workhorse chemical used for automotive parts, cleaning products and more

29-Mar-2024 - A new way to make an important ingredient for plastics, adhesives, carpet fibers, household cleaners and more from natural gas could reduce manufacturing costs in a post-petroleum economy by millions of dollars, thanks to a new chemical reactor designed by University of Michigan engineers. The ...

Making molecules faster: Discovery dramatically reduces time it takes to build molecules

AI and human touch combine to revolutionize chemical synthesis

10-Feb-2023 - With a big assist from artificial intelligence and a heavy dose of human touch, Tim Cernak's lab at the University of Michigan made a discovery that dramatically speeds up the time-consuming chemical process of building molecules that will be tomorrow's medicines, agrichemicals or materials. The ...

Researchers recycles previously unrecyclable plastic

U-Michigan team discovered a way to chemically recycle PVC into usable material

06-Dec-2022 - PVC, or polyvinyl chloride, is one of the most produced plastics in the United States and the third highest by volume in the world. PVC makes up a vast amount of plastics we use on a daily basis. Much of the plastic used in hospital equipment—tubing, blood bags, masks and more—is PVC, as is most ...

Biocatalysts are a bridge to greener, more powerful chemistry

15-Nov-2017 - New research from the University of Michigan Life Sciences Institute is building a bridge from nature's chemistry to greener, more efficient synthetic chemistry. Researchers in the lab of Alison Narayan analyzed biocatalysts evolved by nature for their effectiveness in a variety of synthetic ...

Google provides open source library for quantum chemistry

Platform-independent solution to integrate future developments

26-Oct-2017 - Since physicists have been dealing with the theoretical description of molecules, the solving of quantum mechanical equations has been a major obstacle. This is supposed to be a thing of the past with the release of an open source based system. Google has introduced such a system to the public ...

New metamaterial can switch from hard to soft - and back again

25-Jan-2017 - When a material is made, you typically cannot change whether that material is hard or soft. But a group of University of Michigan researchers have developed a new way to design a "metamaterial" that allows the material to switch between being hard and soft without damaging or altering the ...

Spray-on coating could ice-proof airplanes, power lines, windshields

15-Mar-2016 - On your car windshield, ice is a nuisance. But on an airplane, a wind turbine, an oil rig or power line, it can be downright dangerous. And removing it with the methods that are available today--usually chemical melting agents or labor-intensive scrapers and hammers--is difficult and expensive ...

Carbon capture analyst: 'Coal should stay in the ground'

04-Dec-2015 - Serious flaws have been found in a decade's worth of studies about the best way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and stabilize the climate. The findings, from the University of Michigan, are released as world leaders at COP21 attempt to negotiate the globe's first internationally binding ...