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Unlocking Invisible Spaces: Nobel Prize in Chemistry Honors Metal–Organic Frameworks
The 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson, and Omar Yaghi for their pioneering work on metal–organic frameworks (MOFs)—a revolutionary class of materials that combine metals with organic molecules to create highly porous structures.
Often described as “molecular architecture,” MOFs are remarkable for their ability to pack vast internal surface areas into tiny volumes. Just one gram of a MOF can contain as much internal surface as a football field. This unique property allows them to trap, store, and release gases with extraordinary efficiency.
The Nobel Committee highlighted the transformative potential of MOFs in addressing global challenges. These materials can:
- Capture carbon dioxide to combat climate change
- Harvest water from desert air
- Store hydrogen for clean energy
- Filter pollutants and toxic gases
- Catalyze chemical reactions for greener industrial processes
The laureates’ discoveries, spanning from Robson’s early structural insights in the 1970s to Yaghi’s creation of stable, functional frameworks, have opened the door to more than 100,000 variations of MOFs worldwide. Their work exemplifies how curiosity-driven science can lead to solutions for some of humanity’s most urgent problems.
As the Nobel Committee put it, MOFs are like “tiny hotels for molecules,” offering rooms where gases and chemicals can check in and out—an elegant metaphor for a breakthrough that could reshape the future of energy, environment, and materials science.
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