سعدنا بخبر حصول الأستاذ الدكتور عمر ياغي وزملائه على جائزة نوبل في الكيمياء لعام 2025، وذلك لكونه أول سعودي يحصل على هذه الجائزة المرموقة، وحُق لنا أن نفخر، وفرحنا جميعًا بهذا الإنجاز غير المسبوق، واستعرضت المواقع الإخبارية وحسابات التواصل الاجتماعي سيرته الذاتية العطرة عن كثب والجوائز التي حصل عليها، وبقي أن نتعرف بشكل مبسط على إنجازه ولماذا حقق هو وفريقه جائزة نوبل للكيمياء؟!
القصة بدأت من فضول علمي بسيط، ياغي المتخصص في الكيمياء غير العضوية كان ومازال مفتونًا بفكرة تنظيم المواد كان دائمًا يتساءل:
لماذا لا نصمم المواد والمركبات كما نصمم المباني؟!
وقاده هذا التساؤل إلى تأسيس علمٍ جديد كان جنينًا في رحم معمله عام 1995، وولد بعد ثماني سنوات وتحديدًا في 2003، حين أعلن عنه وأسماه «الكيمياء الشبكية Reticular Chemistry»، وذلك في ورقته العلمية الشهيرة آنذاك.
يقوم الباحثون في هذا العلم ببناء شبكات بلورية صلبة Solid States Crystals ذات مسامات عالية لتكوين هياكل ثلاثية الأبعاد تُسمى الهياكل العضوفلزية (MOFs) يمكن تصميمها مسبقًا تمامًا كما نفعل عند بناء برج من مكعبات الـ LEGO الشهيرة وتعمل هذه المركبات بطريقة (الإسفنج)، حيث يمكنها من خلال ملايين المسامات أن تمتص كميات كبيرة من الماء أو الغازات وتخزنها بكفاءة مذهلة واستقرار غير مسبوق وبانتقائية عالية وبتكلفة مجدية اقتصاديًا!
عبقرية ياغي لم تتوقف عند الاكتشاف العلمي، بل تجاوزته نحو التطبيق، فقد طوّر مع فريقه في جامعة بيركلي جهازًا يعمل بالطاقة الشمسية يمكنه من استخلاص الماء من هواء الصحراء الجاف، حيث تمتص المادة المسامية (الإسفنجة) بخار الماء ليلًا، ثم تطلقه صباحًا عند تعرضها للشمس وبذلك يولد الماء الصالح للشرب من حيث لا ماء!
مهّد ياغي الطريق أمام الباحثين لبزوغ فجر علمٍ جديد له مئات، بل آلاف التطبيقات، والابتكارات المستقبلية التي ستبنى من وحي هذا العلم ستحل الكثير من المشكلات في مختلف المجالات، مع ياغي لم تعد تكتشف المواد بالصدفة وإنما يتم تصميمها على الورق ابتداءً ثم يحولها الكيميائيون المبدعون إلى حقيقة!
قصة عمر ياغي، تذكّرنا بأن الفضول والتساؤل هما الشرارة الأولى لكل إنجاز، وأن الأحلام والتجربة والخطأ هم بداية كل تغيير، اليوم يحتفي به العالم ليس فقط لأنه ابتكر علمًا جديدًا فحسب، بل لأنه أعاد تعريف علاقة الباحث بمجتمعه، علّمنا أن المعمل ليس مكانًا للعزلة، بل نافذة على العالم ولغة لبناء المستقبل وتغيير الحياة للأفضل وترك الأثر، وأن كل أنبوب اختبار قد يكون بدايةً لحلٍّ كبير، وأن الكيمياء حينما تمتزج بالخيال تنتج الحياة.
هكذا تحوّل تساؤل ياغي إلى بحث، وبحثه إلى ابتكار، وابتكاره إلى منتج، ومنتجه إلى حل يخدم الإنسانية. إننا حينما نتسلح بالعلم يمكننا أن نجعل الهواء يشرب، والصحراء تُزهر!
لماذا فاز السعودي عمر ياغي بجائزة نوبل للكيمياء؟
9 أكتوبر 2025 - 12:09
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آخر تحديث 9 أكتوبر 2025 - 12:11
تابع قناة عكاظ على الواتساب
أ. د. فواز سعد أستاذ الكيمياء غير العضوية جامعة أم القرى
We were delighted to hear the news of Professor Dr. Omar Yaghi and his colleagues receiving the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2025, as he is the first Saudi to receive this prestigious award. We have every reason to be proud, and we all rejoiced at this unprecedented achievement. News websites and social media accounts closely reviewed his illustrious biography and the awards he has received. Now, let us simply understand his achievement and why he and his team won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry?!
The story began with simple scientific curiosity. Yaghi, a specialist in inorganic chemistry, has always been fascinated by the idea of organizing materials and constantly wondered:
Why don’t we design materials and compounds as we design buildings?!
This question led him to establish a new science that was a fetus in the womb of his laboratory in 1995, and it was born eight years later, specifically in 2003, when it was announced and named "Reticular Chemistry," in his famous scientific paper at that time.
Researchers in this field build solid-state crystalline networks with high porosity to create three-dimensional structures called Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) that can be pre-designed just like we do when building a tower from famous LEGO blocks. These compounds work like a sponge, as they can absorb large amounts of water or gases through millions of pores and store them with astonishing efficiency, unprecedented stability, high selectivity, and at an economically viable cost!
Yaghi's genius did not stop at scientific discovery; it extended to application. He and his team at Berkeley developed a solar-powered device that can extract water from the dry desert air, where the porous material (the sponge) absorbs water vapor at night and then releases it in the morning when exposed to sunlight, thus generating drinkable water from where there is none!
Yaghi paved the way for researchers to usher in a new science with hundreds, if not thousands, of applications, and future innovations inspired by this science will solve many problems in various fields. With Yaghi, materials are no longer discovered by chance; they are designed on paper first and then turned into reality by creative chemists!
The story of Omar Yaghi reminds us that curiosity and questioning are the first sparks of every achievement, and that dreams, experimentation, and trial and error are the beginnings of every change. Today, the world celebrates him not only for inventing a new science but also for redefining the relationship between researchers and their communities. He taught us that the laboratory is not a place of isolation but a window to the world and a language for building the future, changing lives for the better, and leaving a mark. Every test tube could be the beginning of a great solution, and when chemistry is mixed with imagination, it produces life.
Thus, Yaghi's question transformed into research, his research into innovation, his innovation into a product, and his product into a solution that serves humanity. When we arm ourselves with science, we can make the air drink and the desert bloom!
The story began with simple scientific curiosity. Yaghi, a specialist in inorganic chemistry, has always been fascinated by the idea of organizing materials and constantly wondered:
Why don’t we design materials and compounds as we design buildings?!
This question led him to establish a new science that was a fetus in the womb of his laboratory in 1995, and it was born eight years later, specifically in 2003, when it was announced and named "Reticular Chemistry," in his famous scientific paper at that time.
Researchers in this field build solid-state crystalline networks with high porosity to create three-dimensional structures called Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) that can be pre-designed just like we do when building a tower from famous LEGO blocks. These compounds work like a sponge, as they can absorb large amounts of water or gases through millions of pores and store them with astonishing efficiency, unprecedented stability, high selectivity, and at an economically viable cost!
Yaghi's genius did not stop at scientific discovery; it extended to application. He and his team at Berkeley developed a solar-powered device that can extract water from the dry desert air, where the porous material (the sponge) absorbs water vapor at night and then releases it in the morning when exposed to sunlight, thus generating drinkable water from where there is none!
Yaghi paved the way for researchers to usher in a new science with hundreds, if not thousands, of applications, and future innovations inspired by this science will solve many problems in various fields. With Yaghi, materials are no longer discovered by chance; they are designed on paper first and then turned into reality by creative chemists!
The story of Omar Yaghi reminds us that curiosity and questioning are the first sparks of every achievement, and that dreams, experimentation, and trial and error are the beginnings of every change. Today, the world celebrates him not only for inventing a new science but also for redefining the relationship between researchers and their communities. He taught us that the laboratory is not a place of isolation but a window to the world and a language for building the future, changing lives for the better, and leaving a mark. Every test tube could be the beginning of a great solution, and when chemistry is mixed with imagination, it produces life.
Thus, Yaghi's question transformed into research, his research into innovation, his innovation into a product, and his product into a solution that serves humanity. When we arm ourselves with science, we can make the air drink and the desert bloom!
