How to make water from air, Omar Yaghi is the founder of Atoco
At a laboratory in a Southern California warehouse, scientist Heng Su unveils
what could be a world-changing solution to the global water crisis.
The small handheld object looks unremarkable, consisting of stacked white fins that resemble a miniature old-fashioned apartment radiator. But when Su puts the device on a scale, it silently gains weight within seconds. As the minutes pass, it gets heavier and heavier. That's because the gadget is invisibly gathering water molecules from the surrounding air.
A few feet away, four of the water harvesters sit inside a plastic enclosure shaped like a transparent birdhouse. The warm air inside dislodges the H2O molecules from the harvesters and a condenser transforms the water vapor into liquid, which is dripping into a beaker.
The technology, called metallic organic frameworks (MOFs), doesn't require electricity and can produce water with just ambient sunlight. It's Irvine-based startup Atoco's vision for how to provide water in an increasingly arid world.
This is a lab prototype designed to only produce a few milliliters of water as scientists work to perfect the technology. The company plans on building a full-scale commercial version that could produce thousands of liters of ultrapure water a day for a community. A unit the size of a residential air conditioner could supply water to your home.
"You can harvest water from air anywhere in the world, at any time of the year regardless of the level of humidity, without a carbon footprint," says Omar Yaghi, who founded Atoco in 2021 and is a chemistry professor at the University of California at Berkeley who pioneered MOFs.
Omar Yaghi is the founder of Atoco. Image courtesy of Atoco
Half the world's population experiences water scarcity and 25% endure extremely high levels of water stress, according to a 2024 United Nations analysis. Even in a wealthy place like California, which boasts the world's fifth-largest economy, nearly a million residents lack access to clean drinking water, a June report found.
Climate change-fueled heat waves and droughts, meanwhile, are exacerbating water shortages across the world, sparing neither rich nor poor, and more intense and frequent storms can knock water treatment plants offline.
But even the driest skies contain water. The US Geological Survey estimates that the atmosphere contains 12,900 cubic kilometers of water or about 14% of what's found in the world's lakes. MOFs offer a unique way to harvest some of it.
Like Doctor Who's Tardis, the material is bigger on the inside. A gram of MOFs can have the surface area of a soccer field. Imagine, says Atoco Chief Executive Officer Samer Taha, you take a piece of paper and crumple it as much as you can. It's now a fraction of its original size but retains the same surface area within the folds.
That's what Atoco is doing on the molecular level, engineering nanoscale crystalline structures filled with porous cavities. Its MOFs are made of elements that attract specific molecules, such as H2O.
Other startups are developing MOFs for atmospheric water harvesting. Atoco has an edge, though: Yaghi developed the material and has continued to perfect it while working in a field known as reticular chemistry.
"The advances that Professor Yaghi has made over the past decade keep us ahead of the competition," says Taha.
He declined to say when Atoco would bring its technology to market but notes "it's not far." And he has big ideas for the potential market: It's anyone "that wants to have a consistent, stable and pure water supply and doesn't want to rely on water coming from the government."
The small handheld object looks unremarkable, consisting of stacked white fins that resemble a miniature old-fashioned apartment radiator. But when Su puts the device on a scale, it silently gains weight within seconds. As the minutes pass, it gets heavier and heavier. That's because the gadget is invisibly gathering water molecules from the surrounding air.
A few feet away, four of the water harvesters sit inside a plastic enclosure shaped like a transparent birdhouse. The warm air inside dislodges the H2O molecules from the harvesters and a condenser transforms the water vapor into liquid, which is dripping into a beaker.
The technology, called metallic organic frameworks (MOFs), doesn't require electricity and can produce water with just ambient sunlight. It's Irvine-based startup Atoco's vision for how to provide water in an increasingly arid world.
This is a lab prototype designed to only produce a few milliliters of water as scientists work to perfect the technology. The company plans on building a full-scale commercial version that could produce thousands of liters of ultrapure water a day for a community. A unit the size of a residential air conditioner could supply water to your home.
"You can harvest water from air anywhere in the world, at any time of the year regardless of the level of humidity, without a carbon footprint," says Omar Yaghi, who founded Atoco in 2021 and is a chemistry professor at the University of California at Berkeley who pioneered MOFs.
Omar Yaghi is the founder of Atoco. Image courtesy of Atoco
Half the world's population experiences water scarcity and 25% endure extremely high levels of water stress, according to a 2024 United Nations analysis. Even in a wealthy place like California, which boasts the world's fifth-largest economy, nearly a million residents lack access to clean drinking water, a June report found.
Climate change-fueled heat waves and droughts, meanwhile, are exacerbating water shortages across the world, sparing neither rich nor poor, and more intense and frequent storms can knock water treatment plants offline.
But even the driest skies contain water. The US Geological Survey estimates that the atmosphere contains 12,900 cubic kilometers of water or about 14% of what's found in the world's lakes. MOFs offer a unique way to harvest some of it.
Like Doctor Who's Tardis, the material is bigger on the inside. A gram of MOFs can have the surface area of a soccer field. Imagine, says Atoco Chief Executive Officer Samer Taha, you take a piece of paper and crumple it as much as you can. It's now a fraction of its original size but retains the same surface area within the folds.
That's what Atoco is doing on the molecular level, engineering nanoscale crystalline structures filled with porous cavities. Its MOFs are made of elements that attract specific molecules, such as H2O.
Other startups are developing MOFs for atmospheric water harvesting. Atoco has an edge, though: Yaghi developed the material and has continued to perfect it while working in a field known as reticular chemistry.
"The advances that Professor Yaghi has made over the past decade keep us ahead of the competition," says Taha.
He declined to say when Atoco would bring its technology to market but notes "it's not far." And he has big ideas for the potential market: It's anyone "that wants to have a consistent, stable and pure water supply and doesn't want to rely on water coming from the government."
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