MOFs / COFs

COFs and their cousin materials, metal organic frameworks (MOFs), are porous three-dimensional crystals with extraordinarily large internal surface areas that can absorb and store enormous quantities of targeted molecules. Invented by UC Berkeley's Professor Omar Yaghi, COFs and MOFs consist of molecules (organics for COFs and metal-organics for MOFs) that are stitched into large and extended netlike frameworks whose structures are held together by strong chemical bonds. Such frameworks show great promise for, among other applications, carbon sequestration.

Omar Yaghi receives 2020 Royal Society of Chemistry award

June 24, 2020

Omar Yaghi

The College of Chemistry at UC Berkeley is pleased to announce that Professor Omar Yaghi has received the 2020 Sustainable Water award from the Royal Society of Chemistry. The Society annualy recognizes leaders in various fields of chemistry around the world. This year, the Society acknowledged over 80 individuals and teams for their exceptional achievements in advancing the chemical sciences through their work in everything from education and research, to innovation, policy and volunteering.

Hidden atomic patterns discovered in mixed-metal MOFs

August 18, 2020

Atom probe tomography

Atom probe tomography determines the so-far undiscovered sequences that exist in mixed-metal MOFs (carbon = grey, oxygen = white, metals = blue, green, pink and orange) Source: © Science/AAAS

Layer-by-layer laser slicing of metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) has revealed that different metals in these...

Jeffrey Long receives 2020 Royal Society of Chemistry award

June 24, 2020

Jeffrey Long

The College of Chemistry is pleased announce that Professor Jeffrey Long has received a 2020 award from the Royal Society of Chemistry. The Society annualy recognizes leaders in various fields of chemistry around the world. This year, the Society acknowledged over 80 individuals and teams for their exceptional achievements in advancing the chemical sciences through their work in everything from education and research, to innovation, policy and volunteering.

Professors Omar Yaghi and Evelyn Wang awarded international water prize

June 21, 2018


Yaghi and Wang awarded international water prizeThe team of Professors Omar Yaghi (UC Berkeley) and Evelyn Wang (MIT) have won the Alternative Water Resources prize, which will be awarded at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City.

Programmable synthetic materials

August 7, 2020

Omar Yaghi, multivariate MOF

Rods of multivariate MOFs (left) can be programmed with different metal atoms (colored balls) to do a series of tasks, such as controlled drug release, or to encode information like the ones and zeros of a digital computer. (UC Berkeley image by Omar Yaghi and Zhe Ji)

Berkeley, CA — Artificial molecules could one day form the information unit of...

Molecular decoration determines origin of MOF acidity

November 29, 2018

MOF-808-SO4

Researchers have pinpointed the strong acid site of a sulfated-zirconium MOF catalyst by identifying a specific molecular decoration within its structure. The work could aid studies into solid acid-catalysed reaction mechanisms as well as the development of next-generation solid acid catalysts for many industrial applications. (image: MOF 808 and MOF 808-SO4

Sixth Nano Research Award presented to Xinhe Bao and Omar M. Yaghi

June 27, 2019

Omar Yaghi

This year’s Nano Research Award, which is sponsored by Tsinghua University Press (TUP) and Springer Nature, was presented to two celebrated researchers in Changsha, China on June 23rd. Omar M. Yaghi, the James and Neeltje Tretter Chair Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley received the award for pioneering a new field of research known as reticular chemistry. This chemistry has led to the discovery of several new classes of extended structures called metal-organic frameworks, covalent organic frameworks, zeolitic imidazolate frameworks, and molecular weaving.

A material to save the world?

November 6, 2018

MOF diagram by Mathieu Provet, UC Berkeley.Metal-organic frameworks are compounds that are set to solve some tough challenges: producing water in the desert, removing greenhouse gases from the air and storing dangerous gases more safely.

Watering Deserts: new ways to pluck water from desert air

February 19, 2020

water adsorption

Adsorption is a process which plucks water molecules from air that has less than 100% relative humidity by attaching them to the surface of a solid material. The molecules are held there by electrostatic connections called Van der Waals forces that link them with the molecules of the pertinent surface. To collect a lot of water this way therefore requires a material that has two properties. One is a large surface area. The other is an appropriate Van der Waals response. Experimental traps that employ this principle have been made using substances called metal-organic frameworks.

Yaghi wins Faisal Prize for Science

February 3, 2015
The 2015 King Faisal International Prize for Science has been awarded to Berkeley chemistry professor Omar Yaghi. He shares the award with Michael Grätzel of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.