The Tang Prize Foundation congratulates the 2024 Tang Prize Laureate in Sustainable Development, Prof. Omar M. Yaghi, on being awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry today, October 8. Prof. Yaghi shares this honor with Prof. Susumu Kitagawa (Kyoto University) and Prof. Richard Robson (University of Melbourne) for their seminal contributions to the development of Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs). A renowned chemist and pioneer in the field of reticular chemistry, Prof. Yaghi has made groundbreaking achievements in reticular chemistry and sustainable development.
This marks the fourth time Tang Prize Laureates have received a Nobel Prize. Previous recipients include Dr. James P. Allison and Dr. Tasuku Honjo (2014 Tang Prize Laureates in Biopharmaceutical Science), who shared the 2018 Nobel Prize in Medicine; Dr. Emmanuelle Charpentier and Dr. Jennifer A. Doudna (2016 Tang Prize Laureates in Biopharmaceutical Science), who shared the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry; and Dr. Katalin Kariko and Dr. Drew Weissman (2022 Tang Prize Laureates in Biopharmaceutical Science) also shared the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Dr. Jenn-Chuan Chern, CEO of the Tang Prize Foundation, immediately extended his sincere congratulations to Prof. Omar Yaghi on behalf of the Foundation and its founder, Dr. Samuel Yin. He also thanked the Tang Prize Selection Committee for their independent, professional, and forward-thinking approach in selecting scientists who have made innovative and impactful contributions to the world.
During his visit to Taiwan last year (2024), Prof. Yaghi participated in a series of Tang Prize Week events, including the Award Ceremony, Laureate Lectures, Masters' Forums, and a Youth Symposium. After attending the Youth Symposium at National Hsinchu Senior High School and the Masters’ Forum at NYCU on October 1, 2024, he visited Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), arranged by the Foundation, to share his research findings and engage in exchanges with the Taiwanese industry and academia.
Prof. Yaghi is currently the James and Neeltje Tretter Chair Professor of Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, a Faculty Scientist Affiliate at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the Founding Director of the Berkeley Global Science Institute. He is also the co-director of the newly established Bakar Institute of Digital Materials for the Planet at College of Computing, Data Science and Society. Prof. Yaghi holds 60 US patents and has been honored with many prestigious awards from 17 countries, some of which are among the highest in Chemistry.
Prof. Yaghi pioneered the field of reticular chemistry, which employs innovative synthesis methods to link together organic and inorganic units into strong bonds, forming robust, porous, crystalline metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and covalent organic frameworks (COFs). These materials possess multifunctional properties that enable the effective trapping, concentrating, and manipulation of small gas molecules crucial to Earth's sustainable development, such as carbon dioxide, hydrogen, methane, and water. His research provides novel solutions to the global challenges in energy, environment, and water resources currently faced, and is of great significance in advancing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
As a pioneer of MOFs and COFs, Prof. Yaghi is the first scientist to apply these innovative materials to the field of sustainable development, demonstrating tangible and impressive results. His pioneering work has yielded impressive results. For example, he demonstrated that incorporating one of his MOFs increases the carbon dioxide storage capability at room temperature by 18 folds. Furthermore, chemically modified MOFs and COFs can selectively capture voluminous amounts of carbon dioxide from combustion gases. MOFs are already being utilized in the venting systems of cement plants in Canada. In the context of methane storage, a fuel tank filled with MOFs can triple the amount of methane stored at room temperature and safe pressures compared to a tank without MOFs under the same conditions. This achievement allows automobiles to triple the distance traveled without refueling. Additionally, for hydrogen storage, MOF and COF materials can store up to twelve weight percent of hydrogen (at 77 K and 100 bar) in a tank filled with MOFs, making this technology relevant to the safe and stationary storage of hydrogen.
Using just a kilogram of MOF materials, Prof. Yaghi can harvest water in water-scarce areas with low humidity, such as deserts, using only ambient sunlight. The water is concentrated in the pores of MOFs, and its quality exceeds the standards for drinking water set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In collaboration with industrial companies including General Electric and startups in the past few years, he has developed portable MOFs water harvesters capable of producing hundreds of liters of water per day in an energy-efficient and cost-effective manner, sufficient for meeting the needs of a family. Prof. Yaghi has stated that the amount of water in the air is nearly equivalent to the total fresh water in all rivers and lakes on the Earth's surface. He aims to help water-scarce areas achieve “water independence” through this technology.
At the Youth Symposium at National Hsinchu Senior High School on October 1, 2024, Prof. Yaghi delivered a lecture titled "Water at Dawn: A Journey from Thirst to Thought" to over 230 high school students. He shared his personal experiences of transforming scarcity into abundance and encouraged students to identify their passions, embrace risks, and forge their own paths, embracing a positive outlook, transcending environmental limitations, overcoming challenges, and seeing adversity as a catalyst for innovation.
About the Tang Prize
Since the advent of globalization, mankind has been able to enjoy the convenience brought forth by the advancement of human civilization and science. Yet a multitude of challenges, such as climate change, the emergence of new infectious diseases, wealth gap, and moral degradation, have surfaced along the way. Against this backdrop, Dr. Samuel Yin established the Tang Prize in December 2012. It consists of four award categories, namely Sustainable Development, Biopharmaceutical Science, Sinology, and Rule of Law. Every other year, four independent and professional selection committees, comprising many internationally renowned experts, scholars, and Nobel winners, choose as Tang Prize laureates people who have influenced and made substantive contributions to the world, regardless of ethnicity, nationality or gender. A cash prize of NT$50 million (approx. US$1.7 million) is allocated to each category, with NT$10 million (approx. US$ 0.35 million) of it being a research grant intended to encourage professionals in every field to examine mankind’s most urgent needs in the 21st century, and become leading forces in the development of human society through their outstanding research outcomes and active civic engagement.
