On October 8, 2025, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences issued an announcement that Jordanian-American chemist Omar M. Omar M. Yaghi won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Susumu Kitagawa and Richard Robson for his pioneering contributions to the field of metal-organic framework (MOF) materials. Yaji received this call from Sweden while connecting at the airport, surrounded by hurried travelers, and he was very surprised to receive the Nobel Prize: "This feeling is so special, I am surprised."
In 1995, Yaji's team discovered the reaction conditions for linking transition metal ions to charged carboxylic acid ligands to form strong metal-coordination bonds, a breakthrough that successfully generated crystal extension structures, revolutionizing the traditional mode of solid structure preparation. Subsequently, he published a paper in the Chemical Review, where he first proposed the concept of "metal-organic framework (MOF)", systematically expounding the theory of constructing porous materials through the "precise assembly" of metal ions and organic ligands.
The paper initially had a very low citation rate, with 95% of peers skeptical, believing that the material "looks good, but it's actually useless." But Yaji firmly believes that he is in the right direction, and amidst the noise of doubts, he captures the firm voice of a small number of supporters, from which he summarizes the famous "5% rule": "When 95% of people doubt you, there are still 5% who firmly recognize the value of what you do." These people are what you deserve to pay attention to. You take criticism seriously, but ultimately, you should trust your instincts and do what you know you need to do. This sobriety and persistence became his compass through the academic fog.
In 2003, the Yaji team made a milestone breakthrough - synthesizing MOF-5 material with strong stability. This material uses zinc ions as the "node" and terephthalic acid as the "connecting rod" to form a three-dimensional structure like a honeycomb, and the surface area of one gram of MOF-5 is comparable to that of a football field. More importantly, it can remain stable in high temperature and humid environments, completely breaking the prejudice that "MOF materials are fragile and useless". "When we saw the regular crystal structure with a scanning electron microscope, the whole laboratory was boiling." Yaji still remembers the excitement at that time. The birth of MOF-5 has brought porous materials from "random synthesis" to a new era of "precision design", just like equipping chemists with a set of freely combinable "molecular Lego", by replacing metal nodes and organic links, materials with different functions can be customized.
The Yaji team has successively synthesized a series of new MOF materials: MOF-74, which can efficiently absorb carbon dioxide, MOF-177, which can store hydrogen, and MOF-303, which can capture water from the air. These achievements have moved MOF from theory to reality, providing new solutions to solve global energy and environmental problems.
Among them, the study of collecting water from the air responds to the lack of water resources experienced by Yaji in his childhood. His team conducted field tests in the Mojave Desert in California, producing 0.7 liters of water per kilogram of MOF-303 per day, and a stable production of 0.2 liters of water even in extreme dry weather with a relative humidity of only 7%. This solar-powered water collector makes the dream of "turning the desert into an oasis" possible, and also allows Yaji to win the Royal Society of Chemistry "Water Resources Sustainability Award" in 2020.
Yaji often sleeps only 3-5 hours, and often calls students at 3 a.m. to discuss the progress of the experiment. It is this persistence and persistence that allows him to constantly overcome difficulties. In 2006, he moved to the University of California, Los Angeles, and since 2012 he has been the James & Neeltje Tretter Chair Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and a scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Conclusion: The infinite possibilities brought by science
Yaji's pioneering contributions have gradually been recognized by the global scientific community. In 2017, he received the Albert Einstein World Prize for Science; In 2018, he won the Wolf Prize in Chemistry, two honors that are regarded as the "weather vane" of the Nobel Prize. But he did not stop and pioneered the field of covalent organic framework (COF) materials, further expanding the application boundaries of porous materials, and successfully realizing the scientific dream of "molecular weaving", which was once considered unattainable. In 2019, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, and in 2021, the King of Saudi Arabia issued a royal decree granting him Saudi citizenship - a scientist who came out of a refugee family and is now a recognized scientific authority in many countries.
On October 8, 2025, the good news of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry came, and Yaji received a call from the Nobel Foundation on his way to the airport. In the background sound of the phone interview, you can hear the broadcast before the flight takes off from time to time - this may be an excellent footnote to Aji's twists and turns.
