A Nobel-winning chemist's device pulls drinking water out of dry air with no power needed

Omar Yaghi, a chemistry professor at the University of California, Berkeley, has built a device that makes drinking water from air. He won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry last year. His company, Atoco, now wants to put the device in places hit by drought and storms. The Guardian reported on the equipment on October 21.

How much water can it make?

The unit is about the size of a 6-meter shipping container. Atoco says it can make up to 1,000 liters of clean water a day. It needs little power, so it does not have to be linked to a central grid. That is important after a disaster, when electricity and water supplies are often cut at the same time.

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The device uses metal-organic frameworks, or MOFs. These are the materials that earned Yaghi his Nobel Prize. A MOF is a crystal made by joining metal ions with organic molecules. It is full of tiny holes, much like a sponge. A small piece has a huge surface area, and its structure stays stable.

That makes MOFs good at trapping gases and moisture. Researchers have looked at them for capturing carbon from the air. Yaghi has also used them to pull water vapor out of the air, even in very dry desert conditions. The Nobel Committee said MOFs changed how atoms and molecules can be joined. In its view, people can now design materials with the traits they want.

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Why Caribbean islands are paying attention

Hurricane Beryl hit the Caribbean in the summer of 2024. Hurricane Melissa followed in the fall of 2025. Thousands of residents were left without enough water.

Grenada was badly damaged by Beryl, and it hopes the device will help. Because the units run on low power, they can be set up on their own. That could cut the need to import expensive water. It could also spread water supply across many small sites instead of a few big ones.

“It is urgent to strengthen the resilience of the water supply systems in small island nations vulnerable to extreme weather events,” Yaghi said.

Many island nations turn to desalination, which removes salt from seawater. That process leaves behind very salty brine. When the brine is dumped back into the sea, it can harm marine life. Atoco’s device takes water from the air, so it avoids that problem. The company presents it as a more climate-friendly option.

Yaghi was born in Amman, Jordan, to a Palestinian refugee family. He grew up with too little water and electricity. After the Nobel announcement, he said he used to wake at dawn to collect water that ran for only a couple of hours each week.

He has also spoken about climate change. “The scientific evidence has been presented, and what we need now is the courage to match the enormous task at hand,” he said.

What still has to be proven

The claims come from the company, and the device has not yet been tested in the field. Atoco plans trials in the Mojave Desert. Several things must go well for the idea to work at scale. The materials have to last. The units have to work outside the lab. They also have to become cheap enough to build in large numbers.

Figures cited in coverage say about 2.2 billion people lack safe drinking water.

Yaghi and fellow Nobel winner Susumu Kitagawa of Kyoto University will join Korea University as distinguished professors. They will work at the KU-KIST Graduate School of Converging Science and Technology. Yaghi plans to join research projects, advise on strategy and mentor young scientists.