Omar Farha

About

Omar Farha is the Charles E. and Emma H. Morrison Professorship in Chemistry and also holds a courtesy appointment in Chemical and Biological Engineering at Northwestern University. His research focuses on solving challenging problems in chemistry and materials science, with applications spanning energy, environment, and national defense. He employs atomically precise functional materials, particularly exploring the modular nature of metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) and porous organic polymers (POPs). His work aims to understand how the three-dimensional architecture of these materials influences their functions, which include gas storage and separation, catalysis, water remediation, and detoxification of chemical warfare agent simulants. Dr. Farha's contributions are characterized by fundamental insights into material design and application, advancing the development of innovative solutions for societal and environmental challenges.

Research topics

• Chemistry
• Organic chemistry
• Materials science
• Nanotechnology
• Composite material
• Engineering
• Computer Science
• Environmental chemistry
• Environmental science
• Chemical engineering

Selected publications

• Balancing volumetric and gravimetric uptake in highly porous materials for clean energy

  Science · 2020 · 742 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  ) under a combined temperature and pressure swing (77 K/100 bar → 160 K/5 bar).

  DOI

• Metal–Organic Frameworks against Toxic Chemicals

  Chemical Reviews · 2020 · 679 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  , and NO.

  DOI

• A historical overview of the activation and porosity of metal–organic frameworks

  Chemical Society Reviews · 2020 · 657 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  A historical overview of the activation and porosity of MOFs including strategies to design and preserve permanent porosity in MOFs.

  DOI

• Using nature’s blueprint to expand catalysis with Earth-abundant metals

  Science · 2020 · 562 citations

  Numerous redox transformations that are essential to life are catalyzed by metalloenzymes that feature Earth-abundant metals. In contrast, platinum-group metals have been the cornerstone of many industrial catalytic reactions for decades, providing high activity, thermal stability, and tolerance to chemical poisons. We assert that nature's blueprint provides the fundamental principles for vastly expanding the use of abundant metals in catalysis. We highlight the key physical properties of abunda…

  DOI

• Design Rules of Hydrogen-Bonded Organic Frameworks with High Chemical and Thermal Stabilities

  Journal of the American Chemical Society · 2022 · 516 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  Hydrogen-bonded organic frameworks (HOFs), self-assembled from strategically pre-designed molecular tectons with complementary hydrogen-bonding patterns, are rapidly evolving into a novel and important class of porous materials. In addition to their common features shared with other functionalized porous materials constructed from modular building blocks, the intrinsically flexible and reversible H-bonding connections endow HOFs with straightforward purification procedures, high crystallinity, s…

  DOI

Recent grants

• RAPID: Regenerable Antiviral Nanoporous Materials for Protection

  NSF · $200k · 2020–2022

Frequent coauthors

• Joseph T. Hupp

  874 shared

• Timur İslamoğlu

  Northwestern University

  308 shared

• Randall Q. Snurr

  Northwestern University

  210 shared

• Xingjie Wang

  174 shared

• Xuan Zhang

  Texas A&M University

  173 shared

• J. Fraser Stoddart

  UNSW Sydney

  153 shared

• Zhijie Chen

  143 shared

• Peng Li

  Fudan University

  143 shared

Awards & honors

• Charles E. and Emma H. Morrison Professorship in Chemistry

Similar researchers at Northwestern University

• Chad Mirkinh-189
• George Schatzh-157
• Monica Olvera de la Cruzh-70