Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2025-Pioneering Work on Metal-Organic Frameworks MOFs

1. Basic Announcement and Awards.

• Awards : Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 2025.
• Recipients:
  • Susumu Kitagawa (Japan)
  • Richard Robson (Australia)
  • Omar M. Yaghi (USA)
• Achievement: Recognized as a result of their groundwork and independent work on the formation of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) .
• Prize Share: The three laureates share the total amount of 11 million Swedish kronor equally.

2. The most important contributions of Laureates.

• Richard Robson: The first well-ordered, predictable MOF was attributed to him, and he made it with copper ions and organic linkers. His work was the first evidence-of-concept that it was possible to have such designed molecular structures to store and separate.
• Susumu Kitagawa: The first to develop flexible and dynamic MOFs . He found that these structures were able to open and close, enabling gases to move in and out, and the opportunities of new uses in sensing and controlled release were opened.
• Omar M. Yaghi: An expert in the creation of highly stable and tailor-made MOFs . He proposed a rational design strategy, and methodically built up powerful structures with very high surface area, to directly facilitate applications such as carbon capture and water harvesting.

3. What Are MOFs?

• Structure: Metal-Organic Frameworks are porous crystalline materials , which are based on the connection of the metal ions or metal clusters with organic molecules (linkers) to form rigid cage-like frameworks.
• Key Property: They are characterized by a very high surface area and tunable porosity, i.e. the chemical composition and pore size of the material can be designed to be exactly tailored to a special task.

4. Importance and Practical uses.

• Precise Control on a Molecular Scale: MOFs give scientists an otherwise unknown capability of controlling architecture in the molecular scale, in other words, they form one giant designer materials.
• Handling Global Challenges: This breadth is what renders them important when dealing with a number of major concerns:
• Environmental Remediation: filtering of toxic chemicals in the air and water and capturing carbon dioxide (CO 2).
  • Water Security: Water Vapor in the Air.
  • Energy Storage: Hydrogen and methane storage to clean energy.
  • Catalysis: Making chemical reactions more efficiently accelerated.
• Impact: Kitagawa, Robson, and Yaghi have created a type of material with a completely new classification of materials that possess an enormous potential in terms of the sustainable technology and industrial processes.