Chemistry professor Omar Yaghi is the Royal Society of Chemistry Spiers Memorial Award winner for 2017.
The Spiers Memorial Award is awarded in recognition of an outstanding contribution to the chemical sciences. Award winners are evaluated for the originality and impact of their research as well as the quality of the results. The award also recognises the importance of teamwork across the chemical sciences and the abilities of individuals to develop successful collaborations.
Yaghi is the James and Neeltje Tretter Professor of Chemistry. He is also the founding director of the Berkeley Global Science Institute and co-director of both the Kavli Energy NanoSciences Institute and the California Research Alliance by BASF.
Says Yaghi, "It is a pleasure and a distinct honour to receive the Spiers Award from the Royal Society of Chemistry. I feel that I am accepting this award on behalf of my students and postdocs who have been instrumental in advancing the field both when they worked in my lab and later as independent researchers in their own right."
Yaghi's work encompasses the synthesis, structure and properties of inorganic and organic compounds and the design and construction of new crystalline materials. He is widely known for the discovery and development of several extensive classes of new materials that he has termed metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), covalent organic frameworks (COFs) and zeolitic imidazolate frameworks (ZIFs).
These nanoporous materials have the highest surface areas known, making them useful in clean energy generation and storage, separation and storage of hydrogen and other gases, the capture of water from air for the delivery of fresh water, proton and electron conductive systems, and enzyme-inspired catalysis.
The Royal Society of Chemistry is the world's leading chemistry community, advancing excellence in the chemical sciences. With over 50,000 members worldwide, the society is the UK's professional body for chemical scientists, a non-profit organization with 175 years of history and an international vision for the future.