Category: Research and Innovation

Yipu Du (left) and Yanliang Zhang

A new 3D printing frontier: self-powered wearable devices

When most people think of wearable devices, they think of smart watches, smart glasses, fitness trackers, even smart clothing. These devices, part of a fast-growing market, have two things in common: They all need an external power source, and they all require exacting manufacturing processes. …

Pinar and graduate student in lab

Aging breast tissue could set the stage for invasive breast cancer

The American Cancer Society estimates that 284,200 women will be newly diagnosed with breast cancer in 2021, and 43,600 will die of the disease — the second highest cause of cancer death in women. A woman’s risk of being diagnosed with breast cancer increases with age, but while scientists …

Pinar Zorlutuna with a graduate student in lab

Low-cost, portable device could diagnose heart attacks in minutes

Researchers from the University of Notre Dame’s College of Engineering and the University of Florida’s College of Medicine have developed a sensor that could diagnose a heart attack in less than 30 minutes, according to a study published in Lab on a Chip. Currently, it takes health care …

bubble formation in the Space Tango CubeLab on the ISS.

Space Bubbles: Experiment on International Space Station aims to improve cancer detection

Tengfei Luo had certain hypotheses about what would happen during his scientific experiment, conducted in June aboard the International Space Station, to form water vapor bubbles in an environment without gravity. His goal was to engineer material surfaces to make bigger bubbles that adhere to …

Ship on a foggy sea, early morning

Marine fog comes under focus in new five-year study

Researchers at the University of Notre Dame will lead a five-year study to improve the fundamental understanding, detection, and predictability of marine sea fog. Harindra Joseph Fernando, the Wayne and Diana Murdy Endowed Professor in the Departments of Civil and Environmental Engineering and …

International Space Station. (Credit: NASA)

Notre Dame experiment is in route to space station; could lead to more effective early cancer screenings

Researchers studying how bubbles form and function sent a fully automated, self-contained experiment to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard a Space X rocket that launched this afternoon. The study, led by Tengfei Luo, a professor in the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical …

Different colored samples in vials

New material shown to more efficiently desalinate water

By 2025, two-thirds of the world’s population could experience a freshwater shortage. To tackle this issue, researchers from the University of Notre Dame have identified a new solvent — an ionic liquid — that improves on emerging desalination technology, directional solvent …

McClarren to lead ND team as deputy director of new predictive science center

Ryan McClarren, associate professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering, will serve as deputy director of the Center for Exascale Monte Carlo Neutron Transport (CEMeNT). The research center, led by Oregon State University, is one of nine funded by the U.S. Department of Energy National …

Low-temperature plasma sintering using conditions optimized by machine learning helps improve the energy conversion efficiency of 3D-printed thermoelectric materials.

Cutting the timeline to improve energy efficiency in manufacturing

Long-term solutions for energy use don’t happen overnight. They are most often found through a lengthy process of trial and error. A multidisciplinary team of researchers from the University of Notre Dame and Idaho National Laboratory is working to shorten the timeline for advanced energy …

Summer REU student Federico Hita

Human and mechanical powered plasma: AME researchers create the future

Low-temperature plasmas offer a world of promise for applications in medicine, water purification, agriculture, pollutant removal, nanomaterial synthesis, and more. Yet making plasmas by conventional methods takes several thousand volts of electricity, says David B. Go, the Rooney Family …