2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry honors pioneers of revolutionary frameworks

ISLAMABAD: The Nobel Committee has announced the recipients of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, honoring Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson, and Omar M. Yaghi for their work on metal-organic frameworks on Wednesday.

The committee noted that the laureates’ significant advancements focus on an innovative class of materials designed to contain large spaces that facilitate the flow of gases and other chemicals.

The total prize for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2025 amounts to 11 million Swedish kronor ($1.166 million), which will be divided equally among the winners.

Susumu Kitagawa
Susumu Kitagawa was born in 1951 in Kyoto, Japan. He obtained his PhD from Kyoto University in 1979 and is currently a professor at the same institution.

Richard Robson
Richard Robson was born in 1937 in Glusburn, United Kingdom. He completed his doctoral studies at the University of Oxford in 1962 and is now a professor at the University of Melbourne in Australia.

Omar M. Yaghi
Omar M. Yaghi was born in 1965 in Amman, Jordan. He received his PhD from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1990. He presently serves as a professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

Work
According to the Nobel Prize announcement, metal-organic frameworks, or MOFs, are made up of metal ions functioning as cornerstones, interconnected by lengthy organic molecules. This distinctive molecular structure results in crystals featuring extensive cavities, which allow chemists to create materials specifically designed to capture and store a variety of substances.

Potential benefits
These frameworks have critical applications, including harvesting water from desert air, capturing carbon dioxide, storing toxic gases, and catalyzing chemical reactions.

The Chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, Heiner Linke, commented on the vast potential of MOFs. He noted that they opened the door to new opportunities for custom-made materials with diverse functions.

Historical context
The path to these achievements began in 1989, when Richard Robson sought to explore how to utilize atomic properties in new ways. By combining positively charged copper ions with a four-armed molecule that featured chemical groups attracted to copper, he created a well-ordered crystal filled with numerous cavities. However, this initial structure lacked stability.

Contributions of the winners
Between 1992 and 2003, both Susumu Kitagawa and Omar Yaghi made substantial progress in MOF research. Kitagawa showed that gases could pass through these structures and predicted that they could possess flexibility.

Yaghi developed a notably stable MOF and demonstrated that it could be adapted through rational design to showcase new and desirable characteristics.
The discoveries of these three scientists have led to the development of tens of thousands of different MOFs, offering promising solutions to various global challenges.

Their applications include the separation of PFAS from water, the degradation of pharmaceutical residues in the environment, the capture of carbon dioxide, and the collection of water from arid areas.