A revolution in materials design

From bronze and iron to ceramics and glass to plastics to silicon chips, society has been shaped by the materials we’ve mastered. However, tomorrow’s world will not be shaped by the discovery of – or mastery over – a single new material. Instead, tomorrow’s materials will be integrated multimaterial systems designed and engineered from the bottom up. Nanoscience and nanotechnology have provided new tools and paradigms for designing materials systems that build themselves. Combined with additive manufacturing techniques that use physical space and time to guide the formation of solids from flowable materials, novel materials with unprecedented properties are close at hand. Yet material design is still limited by poorly understood processes, and the complexity of material properties still pale in comparison with what biology provides.

Michigan ChE is taking matter by design to the next level. The convergence of ideas from chemistry, physics, biology, network science, mathematics, materials science, nanotechnology, mechanical engineering and chemical engineering, together with AI, exascale computing and new imaging tools with unprecedented resolution, both spatial and temporal, have set the stage for a materials revolution. Through COMPASS, a new $30M NSF-funded Science & Technology Center on Complex Particle Systems, Michigan ChE is leading this revolution. Designer materials, precisely engineered and manufactured on demand from imprecise nanoscale building blocks, where and when they are needed, will impact life across the globe, create seemingly impossible solutions, and make possible currently unimagined new technologies.

WHY MICHIGAN

The University of Michigan’s deep expertise in manufacturing and strong relationships with key industry, government, economic and partner organizations put us in a central position to move the needle in a state that historically leads innovation in manufacturing.