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The BBVA Foundation distinguishes Omar Yaghi, leader of a chemistry producing new materials with the ability to capture CO2 or harvest water from the air

The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Basic Sciences category goes, in this tenth edition, to Jordanian-American chemist Omar Yaghi, “for his pioneering work in the conception and synthesis of new crystalline materials, MOFs and COFs, of major impact in science and engineering,” with potential applications that extend to “the capture and storage of carbon dioxide (CO2) and trapping water molecules in air to produce water for drinking.”

23 January, 2018

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Omar Yaghi

Yaghi, Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley (United States), created these materials using a chemistry based on “building bricks” – the jury explains – whose structure responds to a carefully controlled design. This strategy “has led to an exponential growth in the creation of new materials having a diversity previously unknown in chemistry.”

Yaghi himself gave this new field the name of Reticular Chemistry, which he defines as “stitching molecular building blocks into extended structures by strong bonds.” A strategy already being practiced, the jury remarks, “in numerous laboratories in academia and industry worldwide.”

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