Berkeley, CA — October 8, 2025 — Omar M. Yaghi, a professor of chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, has been awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for pioneering a new class of crystalline materials that may hold the key to solving two of humanity’s most urgent challenges — capturing carbon and extracting clean water from air.

Unlike condensation-based machines that require large amounts of electricity to chill air, Yaghi’s MOF-based devices rely on adsorption, capturing water molecules directly into the material’s pores. A mild rise in temperature — ideally from solar energy or waste heat — releases the trapped vapor, which then condenses into drinkable water. The process can repeat hundreds of times with minimal power, offering a path toward carbon-neutral, off-grid water access.

Yaghi shares the Nobel with Japan’s Susumu Kitagawa and Australia’s Richard Robson for their invention and development of metal–organic frameworks (MOFs), ultra-porous compounds capable of storing gases, trapping pollutants, and harvesting water molecules even in the driest desert air. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences hailed the trio’s work as “a revolution in reticular chemistry,” likening the atomic sponge-like materials to “Hermione’s handbag” for their astonishing internal capacity.

For Yaghi, the recognition crowns three decades of research that reimagined chemistry’s role in addressing global resource scarcity. “Our goal is to make materials that work for people — that pull water from air, wherever you are,” he said in a recent interview. “The science is about enabling life where water does not naturally exist.”

Born in Amman, Jordan, in 1965 and educated in the United States, Yaghi built his career on the concept of reticular chemistry — assembling molecular building blocks into ordered frameworks with enormous surface area. While initially explored for hydrogen storage and carbon capture, Yaghi’s curiosity turned toward the planet’s growing water crisis.

At his UC Berkeley laboratory, and through his startup Atoco, Yaghi leads research into atmospheric water generation (AWG) systems that use MOFs to absorb humidity from the air and release it as clean liquid water when gently heated. His team’s prototypes have already demonstrated the ability to produce potable water in humidity levels as low as 10 percent — conditions typical of arid regions and conflict zones where conventional filtration or desalination is impossible.

Yaghi aims to transition this research from laboratory to market, developing modular systems for households, military operations, and remote communities. The company is also advancing related frameworks for carbon dioxide capture, leveraging similar chemistry to address climate change on multiple fronts.

A company that has advanced this technology significantly is London based Ahbstra Engineering which is profiled on the Davos Technology Platform.

While commercial scale-up remains a challenge — MOF production costs, durability, and manufacturing logistics still limit widespread deployment — Yaghi’s Nobel recognition is expected to accelerate global investment in adsorption-based AWG. The breakthrough not only validates decades of fundamental chemistry but also promises a tangible humanitarian impact.

“Imagine a world where every home has a box that makes its own water,” Yaghi has said. “That future is no longer science fiction — it’s chemistry.”

To learn more about the Ahbstra which is the leader in commercializing MOFs in the water generation see LINK.