Three Scientists Win the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for Developing Metal-Organic Frameworks
On October 8, 2025, in Stockholm, Sweden, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced that the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2025 was awarded to Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar M. Yaghi, for the development of metal-organic frameworks.
A metal-organic framework is a new form of molecular architecture: metal ions function as cornerstones and are linked by long organic molecules, forming crystals that contain large cavities through which gases and other chemicals can flow. The materials can be used to harvest water from desert air, capture carbon dioxide, store toxic gases or catalyse chemical reactions, and have also been used to separate PFAS from water, break down traces of pharmaceuticals in the environment and store hydrogen. Heiner Linke, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, said metal-organic frameworks have enormous potential, bringing previously unforeseen opportunities for custom-made materials with new functions.
It all started in 1989, when Robson combined positively charged copper ions with a four-armed molecule and obtained a well-ordered, spacious crystal, like a diamond filled with innumerable cavities, although the construction was unstable and collapsed easily. Between 1992 and 2003, Kitagawa and Yaghi separately made a series of revolutionary discoveries: Kitagawa showed that gases can flow in and out of the constructions and predicted that such frameworks could be made flexible, while Yaghi created a very stable metal-organic framework and showed it could be modified using rational design, giving it new and desirable properties.
Chemists have since built tens of thousands of different metal-organic frameworks. Kitagawa is at Kyoto University in Japan, Robson at the University of Melbourne in Australia, and Yaghi at the University of California, Berkeley, in the United States. The three will share the prize of 11 million Swedish kronor equally.
Related: Venezuelan Opposition Leader Machado Wins the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize
(Source: The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences)
Source: The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：Omar M. Yaghi 肖像，2025年。Christopher Michel，CC BY-SA 4.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: Omar M. Yaghi in 2025. By Christopher Michel, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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