A Nobel Prize-winning scientist who once grew up relying on water deliveries in a refugee community has developed a groundbreaking machine that extracts clean drinking water directly from the air, offering fresh hope to billions facing water scarcity.
Professor Omar Yaghi, who won the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, invented the technology through his company, Atoco. The system uses specially engineered porous materials to capture water vapour from the atmosphere, even in hot, desert climates.
The container-sized unit can produce up to 1,000 litres (264 gallons) of clean drinking water daily without relying on rivers, boreholes or municipal water supplies.
Instead, the machine traps microscopic water molecules from the air and converts them into liquid water using ultra-low-grade heat, making it suitable for off-grid communities and emergencies where electricity and conventional water infrastructure are unavailable.
For Yaghi, the innovation is deeply personal. Growing up in a refugee settlement in Jordan,
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