Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2025: The Architecture of Metal-Organic Frameworks
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2025 to Susumu Kitagawa (Japan), Richard Robson (Australia), and Omar M. Yaghi (USA) for their groundbreaking work on the development of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). Their creation represents a new era in molecular architecture, featuring tiny, porous materials with large internal spaces—or “rooms for chemistry”—that allow gases and other chemicals to flow through.
The Molecular Architects
The laureates have developed new types of molecular structures—MOFs—that contain extensive cavities and internal surfaces. These crystalline, sponge-like materials are constructed from metal ions (or clusters) linked by organic molecules. They can be precisely designed to capture or store specific substances.
* Omar M. Yaghi is credited with building the modern MOF. He first used the term metal-organic framework (MOF) in 1995 and, by 1999, created the famous MOF-5. This material was exceptionally stable and possessed an enormous internal surface area—a few grams of MOF-5 could contain an area equivalent to a football field. Yaghi’s work has led to MOFs highly effective at trapping and storing gases. For instance, his team successfully used MOFs to harvest water from desert air, where the material absorbs moisture overnight and then releases it as water under the warmth of the sun.
* Susumu Kitagawa focused on creating stable and flexible MOFs. Beginning his experiments in the 1990s, he overcame initial challenges with weak structures to produce the first stable MOFs by 1997. His significant contribution was demonstrating that MOFs could be flexible, acting like “lungs” that inhale and exhale—a characteristic that led to them being called “soft materials.” These flexible structures can effectively store gases like methane and oxygen.
* Richard Robson initiated the idea of a “metal-organic network” in the 1970s. While teaching students about molecules, he used wooden balls (atoms) and sticks (bonds) for models. This inspired him to realize that similar linking patterns could be used to build new molecular structures. In 1989, he created a crystalline structure by connecting copper ions with a four-armed organic molecule, establishing the foundational concept for the metal-organic network idea.
Applications and Impact
The development of MOFs by Kitagawa, Robson, and Yaghi provides chemists with powerful new tools to address pressing global challenges.
The unique molecular constructions can be used for:
* Harvesting water from desert or arid environments.
* Capturing carbon dioxide to combat climate change.
* Extracting pollutants from water.
* Storing toxic gases safely.
* Storing hydrogen for potential energy applications.
* Catalyzing chemical reactions.
These porous “molecular buildings” can be custom-designed to attract and hold specific molecules, opening up vast new opportunities for innovation in chemistry and material science. The laureates’ work has truly created new, powerful “rooms for chemistry” at the molecular level.
Click Here For More Global News
Source: The Nobel Prize, Dainik Bhaskar