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.

New institute brings together chemistry and machine learning to tackle climate change

September 21, 2022
By Rachel Leven | Berkeley Computing, Data Science, and Society

Omar Yaghi

Image: Professor Omar Yaghi in his office. Photo College of Chemistry.

Imagine a technology that could remove planet-warming emissions from smokestacks, turn moisture in the air into drinking water and transform carbon dioxide into clean energy.

A new UC Berkeley institute will bring together top machine learning and chemistry researchers to make this vision a reality, and...

Omar Yaghi elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina

May 26, 2022
UC Berkeley, College of Chemistry Press Release

Omar M. Yaghi

The College of Chemistry is pleased to announce that Omar M. Yaghi, UC Berkeley James and Neeltje Tretter Chair Professor of Chemistry, has been elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Prof. Yaghi joins actor Glenn Close, novelist Salman Rushdie, and...

Omar Yaghi awarded the inaugural VinFuture Special Prize

January 24, 2022
VinFuture Prize Press Release

Omar Yaghi at the VinFuture award ceremony - Vietnam

The first Special Prize, dedicated to “Innovators with Outstanding Achievements in Emerging Fields”, is awarded to Professor Omar Yaghi (USA) for his work on discovering metal-organic frameworks. — Photo courtsey VinFuture Prize

The first VinFuture Special Prize for Innovators with...

ExxonMobil collaborates on discovery of new material to enhance carbon capture technology

August 2, 2021
UC Berkeley, College of Chemistry Press Release

Researching the development of a sustainable energy future

Scientists from ExxonMobil, University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have discovered a new material that could capture more than 90 percent of CO2 emitted from industrial sources, such as natural gas-fired power plants, using low-temperature steam,...

Omar Yaghi receives the Gerhard Ertl Lecture Award

July 13, 2021
UC Berkeley, College of Chemistry Press Release

Omar Yaghi

The 14th Gerhard Ertl Lecture Award goes to Omar M. Yaghi, Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, and elected member of the US National Academy of Sciences. The Award Committee, comprised of jurors Prof. Dr. Joachim Sauer (...

Portable oasis: GE and its partners plan to build a box to produce water from air

March 23, 2021
Chris Noon| GE Renewable Energy

Test of water extracted from air

Image courtesy of GE.

Keeping enemies on the run is all part of the job for soldiers in the U.S. Army, yet troops stationed in the world’s hot spots frequently face another relentless foe: thirst. But scientists at GE Research and their partners at U.S. universities including ...

A sponge to soak up carbon dioxide in the air

February 22, 2021
by Julie Chao | Berkeley Lab

smokestacks

Berkeley Lab is pursuing a portfolio of negative emissions technologies and related research to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. (Photo courtesy Jeffrey Reimer)

Human activity is now leading to the equivalent of 40 billion tons of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere each year, putting us on track to increase the planet’s temperature by 1.5 degrees Celsius over...

A network of cubes opens the door for new COF chemistry

October 29, 2020
by Ariana Remmel | C&EN

illustration of a newly designed COF is composed of repeating borophosphonate cubes linked at the vertices

A new covalent organic framework uses boron and phosphorus to make complex connections. This new COF is composed of repeating borophosphonate cubes linked at the vertices. O = red; B = pink; P...

Hidden atomic patterns discovered in mixed-metal MOFs

August 18, 2020
Fernando Gomollón-Bell | Chemistry World

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...

Programmable synthetic materials

August 7, 2020
By Robert Sanders | UC Berkeley media relations

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...