Climate Change

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.

New technique to capture CO2 could reduce power plant greenhouse gases

July 23, 2020
By Robert Sanders | UC Berkeley media relations

Use of MOFs to capture CO2

A big advance in carbon capture technology could provide an efficient and inexpensive way for natural gas power plants to remove carbon dioxide from their flue emissions, a necessary step in reducing greenhouse gas emissions to slow global warming and climate change. Developed by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and ExxonMobil, the new technique uses a highly porous material called a metal-organic framework, or MOF, modified with nitrogen-containing amine molecules to capture the CO2 and low temperature steam to flush out the CO2 for other uses or to sequester it underground.

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.

Peidong Yang awarded 2020 Global Energy Prize

September 10, 2020
UC Berkeley, College of Chemistry Press Release

Peidong Yang for pioneering semiconductor bio-hybrid systems for artificial photosynthesis

Peidong Yang, S.K. and Angela Chan Distinguished Professor of Energy and Professor of Chemistry, has been recognized as one of three laureates of the 2020 Global Energy Prize for...

A material to save the world?

November 6, 2018
Scientific American Mega

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.

Omar Yaghi awarded honorary Doctor of Science by Princeton University

June 4, 2025
By Veronica Bartell | College of Chemistry
Princeton's honorary doctorate is one of the highest academic distinctions in the United States, granted only to individuals whose achievements reflect scholarly excellence and align with the University's mission to advance knowledge and serve humanity.

An unexpected discovery at the air-water interface

December 4, 2023
By Rachel Berkowitz | Berkeley Lab
Research led by Richard Saykally reveals a surprising chemical pathway for a CO2 reaction important in many geological and biological processes.

Institute brings together scientists to design pollution-adsorbing materials

December 12, 2024
By Sarah C.P. Williams
The Baker Hughes Institute for Decarbonization Materials has launched to support Berkeley researchers working to pull chemicals from industrial emission streams and the atmosphere.

Red light-powered device for CO₂ fixation

July 30, 2024
By Veronica Bartell | College of Chemistry
Scientists have designed a special device that uses low-intensity red light to continuously convert CO₂ into useful chemicals, day and night.

Half a pound of this powder can remove as much CO2 from the air as a tree, scientists say

October 23, 2024
By Karen Kaplan | Los Angeles Times
A typical large tree can suck as much as 40 kilograms of carbon dioxide out of the air over the course of a year. Now scientists at UC Berkeley say they can do the same job with less than half a pound of a fluffy yellow powder.