Nobel prize in chemistry awarded for metal-organic frameworks
The 2025 Nobel prize in chemistry has been awarded to Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson, and Omar Yaghi for pioneering metal-organic frameworks, porous materials capable of storing and releasing gases like carbon dioxide. These structures, which self-assemble from metal ions and organic molecules, have vast potential for applications such as capturing pollutants and harvesting water from air. The committee praised their work for creating materials that can hold enormous volumes of substances in tiny spaces.
In the late 1980s, Richard Robson at the University of Melbourne in Australia drew inspiration from the ordered structure of diamonds to develop the first metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). He used metal ions as nodes linked by organic molecules, allowing them to self-assemble into frameworks with large cavities, much bigger than those in diamond. However, Robson's initial MOFs had cavities filled with water.
Susumu Kitagawa at Kyoto University in Japan advanced the field by creating MOFs stable enough to be dried, enabling them to absorb and release gases. “He showed that the gases could be taken up, absorbed by the material, and could also be released from the material,” said Olof Ramström, a member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry. Kitagawa further developed MOFs that change shape when gases are added or removed.
Omar Yaghi at the University of California, Berkeley, enhanced stability by employing metal ion clusters with zinc and oxygen, connected by carboxylate-containing linkers. “This is an astonishing framework because it was highly stable. It was stable all the way up to 300 degrees Celsius,” Ramström noted. “But even more remarkable was that it contains an enormous surface area. So just a few grams of this porous material, roughly the same as a small sugar cube, contains as much surface area as a large football pitch that is several thousands of square meters.” Yaghi also demonstrated that longer linkers could enlarge the cavities.
Heiner Linke, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, compared the materials to “Hermione’s handbag in Harry Potter,” adding, “It can store huge amounts of gas in a tiny volume.” Tens of thousands of MOFs have since been created, with new ones emerging almost daily, according to Ramström. Potential uses include capturing CO2 from chimneys, removing forever chemicals, and extracting water from desert air.