MiHTEE Lab

Making and breaking things in the MiHTEE Lab! Dekota and Bryce's custom heaters for our molten salt loop, Diego's custom pressure vessel for FLiBe infiltration experiments, and Abdullah's tensile test on ultra fine grained stainless steel #glowblue @umichNERS

We've got a few molten salt loop projects in the hopper, so we're setting up an extra experimental bay. Here's Annalise with part of the vacuum assembly. As you can see, it requires a bit of force to tighten those fittings! #glowblue @umichNERS

Bade is preparing capsules for a thermal cycling experiment with uranium fluoride. She will study how uranium deposits on the salt facing walls of containment vessels in molten salt reactors #glowblue @umichNERS

We're all in on powder met for nuclear components! Brian has HIP cans before and after HIPing in our AIP6-30H. We're studying more than the parts - we're looking at the process too, linking processing to structure to performance #glowblue @umichNERS

Michigan brought a good crowd and lots of impactful research to MiNES 2025 @umichNERS

MiHTEE Lab made the most of MSR Workshop 2025. Our students showed off 7 posters demonstrating the breadth and impact of our work. We're looking forward to next year's workshop! #glowblue @umichNERS

New group photo on a beautiful Fall day on North Campus (missing a few people)

Connor with new PhD student Mike and Recent Michigan PhD grad and new MiHTEE post doc Abdullah sealing up an autoclave for an IASCC experiment with an ODS stainless steel

To do the best experiments, we need salt we can trust. Here's new work by Adam Burak on purification of chloride salts for nuclear applications. pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/ac…

New work by Dino Sulemanovic on the effect of Eu on corrosion in chloride salt is gracing the cover of ACS Applied Engineering Materials: pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/ac…

Our nuclear materials students are doing fascinating research, including MiHTEE Lab PhD student Crewse Petersen ners.engin.umich.edu/2025/06/17/ner…

Natalie, a sophomore nuclear engineering student, is rolling tungsten at 1100C. We're using old school metallurgy to make better refractory materials for extreme environments @umichNERS

Update: it's glowing hot #glowblue #glowred

When we can't buy the heaters we want, we make them from scratch! Brian built this prototype heater from NiCr wire and fiberglass insulation. When the design is perfected, we'll use these to power our next generation molten salt thermal convection loops @umichNERS

Fresh new work by Reid Bohanon on high temperature compatibilty of yttrium hydride with candidate hydrogen barrier coating materials: tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…

Dekota is making purified chloride salt so we can do high quality corrosion experiments. Connor is in the background setting up our fluoride salt loop. #alwaysgrinding #glowblue @umichNERS

Dekota is making purified chloride salt so we can do high quality corrosion experiments. Connor is in the background setting up our fluoride salt loop. #alwaysgrinding #glowblue @umichNERS

Brian just whipped up a batch of our latest MiHTEE Lab swag. He used our laser engraver on stainless steel to make these pins. The colors come from varying the laser power to control oxidation.

Great visit from Ron Crone and Doug Crawford from @INL. We discussed ways to work together to advance nuclear energy using the unique abilities of both of our institutions. Plus, it was a throwback for Doug, who helped build the corrosion labs as a student. @umichNERS

Sophomore Liam and Freshman @umichNERS Bryce are taking samples of used salt for analysis. It's never too early to get involved in productive research with the MiHTEE Lab!