SuperCritical Materials Corp, an Austin, Texas-based nuclear fuel technology company, announced a research partnership with the University of Michigan on September 22, 2026, to develop and test offshore systems capable of extracting uranium from seawater. The company holds an exclusive license to a patented uranium adsorbent designed to capture dissolved uranium as ocean water passes across it.
Dr. Maha Haji, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering and director of the university's Symbiotic Engineering and Analysis Laboratory, will lead the research. Her team will study how the adsorbent material behaves under the mechanical stresses of packing, ocean deployment, and retrieval, then build and test prototype deployment systems. Testing will take place at the university's Aaron Friedman Marine Hydrodynamics Laboratory, a facility equipped with towing and wind wave tanks that simulate ocean currents and wave conditions.
The world's oceans hold an estimated 4.5 billion metric tons of dissolved uranium, a reserve far larger than known land based deposits. SuperCritical said its nearshore development program aims to engineer an industrial scale, cost competitive process for pulling that uranium out of seawater to support the domestic nuclear fuel supply chain.
The partnership comes as the United States works to expand domestic uranium capacity and reduce reliance on imported supply. Company executives said the University of Michigan collaboration will generate data to support future cost modeling, feasibility studies, and offshore pilot programs as the technology moves from laboratory testing toward commercial scale design.
This is not financial or investment advice. Figures and details reflect company reporting as of the announcement date.
Source: GlobeNewswire - https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2026/09/22/3366422/0/en/supercritical-materials-partners-with-university-of-michigan-to-advance-offshore-uranium-recovery-systems.html