Three scientists awarded 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing porous metal-organic framework materials (MOFs)

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On October 8, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced that the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry would be awarded to Susumu Kitagawa, a professor at Kyoto University in Japan, Richard Robson, a professor at the University of Melbourne in Australia, and Omar M. Yaghi, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, in recognition of their contributions to the development of metal-organic framework materials. The three winners developed a new form of molecular structure with an extremely large internal space through which gases and other chemicals can flow. Such porous materials are known as metal-organic framework materials (MOFs). By altering the building blocks used in MOFs, chemists can design them to capture and store specific substances. MOFs can also drive chemical reactions or conduct electricity. Heiner Linke, chairman of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, said that metal-organic frameworks hold great potential, offering previously unforeseen opportunities to create materials with new functions. In 1989, Richard Robson attempted to utilize the inherent properties of atoms in a new way. He combined positively charged copper ions with a “four-arm” molecule: each “arm” of this molecule possesses a chemical group that is attracted to copper ions. When combined, the two form a crystal with a regular structure and an internal cavity, resembling a diamond filled with numerous voids. Robson immediately recognized the potential of this molecular structure, but it was unstable and prone to collapsing. Susumu Kitagawa and Omar Yaghi laid a solid foundation for this approach: between 1992 and 2003, they made a series of revolutionary discoveries respectively. Suketsugu Kitakawa demonstrated that gases can move in and out freely of these structures, and predicted that metal-organic framework materials could be designed as flexible materials ； Aji, on the other hand, created a highly stable metal-organic framework material and demonstrated that it could be modified through careful design to endow it with new, desirable properties. Following the groundbreaking discoveries by the laureates, chemists have synthesized tens of thousands of MOFs. Some of these may help address some of the greatest challenges facing humanity, including separating PFAS from water, breaking down trace amounts of drugs in the environment, capturing carbon dioxide, or collecting water from desert air.