Nobel laureate’s desert device pulls drinking water from dry air

The Palestinian American chemist Omar Yaghi, who shared the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for pioneering metal organic frameworks, has turned a childhood shaped by water scarcity into a technology that can draw drinking water directly from the air, even in some of the driest places on Earth. His company, Atoco, has developed container sized atmospheric water harvesters that use finely tuned porous materials to capture water molecules from ambient air and then release them as high purity liquid, offering a decentralized source of supply that does not rely on rivers, aquifers, or a power grid. The off grid models operate using low grade ambient or waste heat rather than electricity, allowing them to function after storms or in remote areas where conventional infrastructure has failed. Atoco says its current units, roughly the size of a standard 20 foot shipping container, can produce up to about 1,000 liters of near distilled water per day off grid, while grid connected systems can generate between 2,000 and 4,000 liters daily depending on conditions. Field tests in California’s Death Valley, one of the hottest and driest locations on the planet, have demonstrated that the materials can pull moisture from air at very low humidity and turn it into clean water by cycling between absorption at cooler night time temperatures and release when warmed.

The promise of this technology is emerging just as UN backed researchers warn that the world has entered an era of “global water bankruptcy,” with humans drawing down lakes, rivers, and underground reserves faster than they can be replenished. A recent report from the UN University’s Institute for Water, Environment and Health concluded that around four billion people suffer severe water scarcity for at least one month each year, and that about three quarters of the global population now lives in countries considered water insecure or critically water insecure. Yaghi has described atmospheric water harvesting as a way to supplement, rather than replace, existing supplies by giving communities and industries an on site source that does not depend on increasingly stressed freshwater systems. By using heat instead of compressors or large pumps, the Atoco devices are pitched as less carbon intensive than conventional desalination plants, which require substantial energy and can damage marine ecosystems when concentrated brine is discharged back into the sea. The firm is positioning its units as part of a broader shift toward “water positive” operations in sectors ranging from controlled environment agriculture to data centers, where operators are under pressure to cut both emissions and water consumption.

For Yaghi, the quest for water from air is rooted in his early years in a Palestinian refugee family in Amman, Jordan, where his household of ten children lived without running water or electricity and relied on infrequent deliveries from municipal tankers. In public remarks after his Nobel win, he recalled neighbors passing the word that “the water is coming,” prompting a scramble to fill every available container before the taps ran dry again. Those memories helped drive his research into metal organic frameworks, crystalline materials whose precisely engineered pores can store gases, liquids, or other molecules with exceptional efficiency and selectivity. The same chemistry that first gained attention for capturing carbon dioxide and storing hydrogen has now been adapted to harvest water from thin air, with the frameworks tailored to latch onto water molecules at low humidity and then release them when warmed. The Nobel Committee cited the potential to draw water from desert air as one of the most striking applications of this line of research when it honored Yaghi and his co laureates in 2025.

Small island nations and hurricane exposed territories in the Caribbean are among those now exploring whether the technology could bolster their resilience to extreme weather. Grenada’s outlying islands of Carriacou and Petite Martinique, which were badly damaged by Hurricane Beryl in 2024 and have since depended on water shipments from the mainland, are looking at atmospheric water units as a way to cut the cost and emissions of importing bottled or trucked supplies and to keep taps running when centralized systems are knocked out. Regional officials say containerized, modular devices that can sit close to communities offer an appealing hedge against future storms, especially if they can be restarted quickly after an outage and maintained without specialist crews. Yaghi has argued that for island and coastal states grappling with sea level rise and stronger cyclones, drawing modest volumes of water from the air could complement desalination rather than replace it, reducing strain on coastal ecosystems and giving remote settlements more autonomy. The Guardian recently reported that some Caribbean governments view the units as a tool not only for emergency response but also for bridging longer dry seasons that are intensifying with climate change. That combination of post disaster backup and chronic drought relief is central to Atoco’s pitch as it seeks early adopters among climate vulnerable countries.

Atoco, founded by Yaghi in 2020 and based in California, is now preparing to move from prototype trials into commercial deployment. The company says it aims to begin taking orders for its containerized systems in the second half of 2026, targeting customers in agriculture, remote communities, data centers, and heavy industry that need reliable water supplies but face tightening regulations and climate risks. One focus is technology firms that operate large server farms in arid regions, where conventional cooling systems consume vast quantities of freshwater; Atoco is working on configurations that use low temperature waste heat from those facilities both to drive water production and to help control indoor humidity. Company representatives say the devices can be scaled in clusters to raise output when needed and can be integrated with renewable energy systems, such as solar thermal panels, to minimize operating emissions. Yaghi has framed the broader goal as making it possible to “harvest water from air anywhere in the world, at any time of the year,” while keeping the process effectively carbon neutral.