Omar Yaghi, a chemist at the University of California, Berkeley, has been awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He shares the honor with Richard Robson from the University of Melbourne and Susumu Kitagawa from Kyoto University. The Nobel committee recognized their work for creating “molecular constructions with large spaces through which gases and other chemicals can flow. These constructions, metal-organic frameworks, can be used to harvest water from desert air, capture carbon dioxide, store toxic gases or catalyze chemical reactions.”
Yaghi is the 28th UC Berkeley faculty member to receive a Nobel Prize and the fifth winner from the university in five years. His recent achievement follows John Clarke’s win of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics alongside two faculty members from UC Santa Barbara. In previous years, UC faculty such as David Card, Jennifer Doudna, and Reinhard Genzel have also received Nobel honors.
Yaghi holds the James and Neeltje Tretter Chair in the College of Chemistry at UC Berkeley and serves as co-director of the Kavli Energy NanoSciences Institute. In the 1990s, he pioneered metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), hybrid compounds that have highly porous crystal structures. These materials can absorb, store, and release gases and vapors efficiently. Yaghi’s research demonstrated that MOFs are stable and tunable for specific applications by altering their metal or organic components.
To date, over 100,000 unique MOF structures have been created for various uses including capturing carbon dioxide from industrial emissions and storing methane or hydrogen for energy purposes. Yaghi’s recent developments include MOFs capable of extracting water from air in arid regions. He helped launch a company producing compact water harvesters able to collect up to five liters of water per day from desert air. Another company he founded in 2020 aims to use MOFs for climate change mitigation and increasing access to drinking water.
Yaghi also introduced covalent organic frameworks (COFs) and zeolitic imidazolate frameworks (ZIFs), expanding potential applications in gas storage and clean water production. COFs may also serve as supercapacitors due to their ion storage capabilities.
He refers to his area of research as “reticular chemistry,” describing it as “stitching molecular building blocks into crystalline, extended structures by strong bonds.” Reflecting on his early career, Yaghi said: “There was no rationality in how you made these materials. There was no design, no intellectual rules or guidance for making them,” adding that his goal was “building materials using a building block approach so that I could rationally put these things together.”
His innovations led to robust porous crystals using clusters of metal atoms linked by organic molecules. Yaghi noted: “That basically was the spark that ignited the field,” explaining how these new frameworks allowed scientists to create a vast variety of customizable materials for applications such as hydrogen storage and carbon capture.
The high surface area within MOF pores allows them to adsorb large volumes of gas. The frameworks’ structure can be adjusted to target specific gases for storage or catalysis. According to Yaghi: “The strong bonds between the metal clusters and charged organic linkers basically make the framework steady and robust.”
His work combined organic chemistry with inorganic chemistry to create customizable two- and three-dimensional materials. By incorporating enzymes into MOF pores, these materials can catalyze reactions relevant for clean energy production.
Although initially met with skepticism from some scientists, Yaghi persisted in developing MOFs throughout academic positions at Arizona State University, University of Michigan, UCLA, and UC Berkeley. The field has grown rapidly; scientific publications on MOFs increase annually and companies continue exploring commercial uses ranging from chemical storage to new catalysts.
In 2022, Yaghi became scientific director of UC Berkeley’s Bakar Institute of Digital Materials for the Planet. The institute applies artificial intelligence to develop cost-effective versions of MOFs and COFs aimed at addressing climate change impacts.
Yaghi is also founding director of the Berkeley Global Science Institute, which fosters international research collaboration by establishing centers in countries such as Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Jordan, South Korea, Argentina, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
Born in Amman, Jordan in 1965 to Palestinian refugee parents, Yaghi moved alone to Troy, New York at age 15 for his education. He attended Hudson Valley Community College before transferring to SUNY Albany where he earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry cum laude. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1990.
Following postdoctoral work at Harvard University supported by a National Science Foundation fellowship, Yaghi held faculty positions at Arizona State University starting in 1992 before moving on to Michigan and UCLA prior to joining UC Berkeley’s faculty in 2012.
He directed Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Molecular Foundry until 2013 and has held leadership roles within several research alliances.
Yaghi has received multiple awards recognizing his contributions to chemistry and material science including election to the National Academy of Sciences in 2019; awards from organizations such as the Materials Research Society (Von Hippel Award), Tang Prize Foundation (Sustainable Development), Syensqo (Science for the Future Ernest Solvay Prize), VinFuture Prize Foundation (Outstanding Achievements), Royal Society of Chemistry (Sustainable Water Award), German Chemical Society (August Wilhelm von Hofmann Denkmünze gold medal), Wolf Prize Foundation (Chemistry), Eni S.p.A. (Energy Transition Award), BBVA Foundation (Frontiers of Knowledge Award), King Faisal Foundation (International Prize in Science), American Chemical Society (Award in Chemistry of Materials) among others.
He is a member or honorary fellow of several national academies including those in Germany, America, India, Turkey, Jordan as well as being a founding member of Kuwait’s Academy of Arab Scientists.
Yaghi resides in Berkeley, California.
