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: 2019 Innovator of the Year

April 19, 2020
By Patricia Miller | Innovation and Tech Today
Omar Yaghi, the James and Neeltje Tretter Chair
 Professor of Chemistry at UC Berkeley, has been announced as the 2019 Innovator of the Year by Innovation & Tech Today.

Omar Yaghi shares the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

October 8, 2025
Press Release | College of Chemistry
(College of Chemistry, UC Berkeley) The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm Sweden have named Yaghi one of the 2025 Nobel laureates in Chemistry.
https://news.berkeley.edu/2025/10/08/uc-berkeleys-omar-yaghi-shares-2025-nobel-p…

Trio win Nobel chemistry prize for work on 'Hermione's handbag' materials

October 8, 2025
By Johan Ahlander, Niklas Pollard and Marie Mannes | Reuters
(Reuters) - Scientists Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar Yaghi won the 2025 Nobel chemistry prize for developing a new form of molecular architecture, yielding materials that can help tackle challenges such as climate change and lack of fresh water.
https://www.reuters.com/science/kitagawa-robson-yaghi-win-2025-nobel-prize-chemi…

Research on metal-organic frameworks gets the chemistry Nobel Prize

October 8, 2025
by The Associated Press
(The Associated Press/NPR) - Three scientists won the Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday for their development of metal–organic frameworks that could eventually help reduce pollution and combat climate change. (Photo credit: Nobel Prize, Clement Morin)
https://www.npr.org/2025/10/08/g-s1-92461/nobel-prize-chemistry-metal-organic-fr…

Omar M. Yaghi to receive 2025 Von Hippel Award, the Materials Research Society’s highest honor

September 30, 2025
Press Release courtesy of the Materials Research Society (MRS)
Yaghi is being honored for pioneering the design and synthesis of metal-organic frameworks and covalent organic frameworks, enabling advances in gas storage, carbon capture, and water harvesting from air.

Omar Yaghi receives 2020 Royal Society of Chemistry award

June 24, 2020
College of Chemistry Press Release

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
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 revealed that different metals in these...

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.

Jeffrey Long receives 2020 Royal Society of Chemistry award

June 24, 2020
College of Chemistry Press Release

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.

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 one day form the information unit of...