Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2025
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Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2025

Author: Vera Koester

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2025 has been awarded to

  • Susumu Kitagawa, Kyoto University, Japan
  • Richard Robson, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia,
  • Omar M. Yaghi, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA, and

for “the development of metal-organic frameworks.” [1].

Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) are porous materials composed of metal centers and organic linkers, forming highly crystalline structures with nanometer-sized pores and a large surface area and have tunable properties. Researchers have used them to harvest water from desert air, extract pollutants from water, capture carbon dioxide, and store hydrogen.

MOFs are classified as reticular materials. Reticular materials are crystalline, porous solids formed by linking molecular building blocks together with strong chemical bonds. This creates periodic structures with high surface areas and tailored functionalities. Other key examples include covalent organic frameworks (COFs), crystalline, porous materials built from organic building blocks linked by strong, reversible covalent bonds.

 

1 Research

In 1989, Richard Robson combined positively charged copper ions with a four-armed molecule, each arm ending in a group attracted to copper (tetracyanotetraphenylmethane linkers). The components bonded to form a well-ordered, spacious crystal, like a diamond filled with countless tiny cavities. However, the crystal was unstable and collapsed easily.

Between 1992 and 2003, Susumu Kitagawa and Omar Yaghi independently made a series of discoveries:

  • Susumu Kitagawa demonstrated that gases can flow in and out of these structures (1997; cobalt ions and 4,4′-bipyridine linkers) and predicted that MOFs could be made flexible (1998).
  • Omar Yaghi introduced the term metal–organic framework (MOF) in 1995, created MOF-5 (zinc clusters and 1,4-benzodicarboxylate linkers) in 1999—an exceptionally porous and stable material—and later demonstrated that MOFs could be rationally designed and modified to obtain new properties.

In the meantime, chemists have synthesized tens of thousands of different MOFs. 

 

I remember that in 2018, Omar Yaghi gave an excellent plenary talk on MOFs at the EuChems Conference in Liverpool, UK, briefly touching on their history. For anyone interested, here is a summary of the talk; the references are linked in the original article.

 

Laureates

Susumu Kitagawa, born 4 July 1951, in Kyoto, Japan, studied chemistry at Kyoto University, where he received his Ph.D. in 1979. He became an Assistant Professor at Kindai University, Japan, in 1979. Susumu Kitagawa was promoted to Lecturer in 1983 and to Associate Professor in 1988. He joined Tokyo Metropolitan University, Japan, in 1992 as Professor of Inorganic Chemistry and returned to Kyoto University as Professor in 1998. He has served there as Director of the Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences since 2013.

Among other awards, Susumu Kitagawa has received the Humboldt Research Prize in 2008, the Chemical Society of Japan Award in 2009, and the 2017 Chemistry for the Future Solvay Prize. His research focuses on coordination chemistry and porous materials.

 

Richard Robson, born 4 June 1937 in Glusburn, in West Yorkshire, UK, studied chemistry at the University of Oxford, UK, where he received his Ph.D. in 1962. After postdoctoral research at the California Institute of Technology, USA, from 1962–1964 and at Stanford University, USA, from 1964–1965, he was appointed Lecturer in chemistry at the University of Melbourne, Australia, from 1966–1970, where he remained for the duration of his career.

Among other awards, Richard Robson received the 1998 Burrows Award from the Inorganic Division of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI) and was made a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 2000. In 2022, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS).

 

Omar M. Yaghi, born 9 February 1965 in Amman, Jordan, studied chemistry at the State University of New York-Albany, NY, USA, and the University of Illinois-Urbana, USA, where he received his Ph.D. in 1990. He was a National Science Foundation (NSF) Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA, from 1990 to 1992. Yaghi then joined the Arizona State University, USA, as an Assistant Professor. In 1999, he moved to the University of Michigan, USA, as Robert W. Parry Professor. From 2006 to 2011, he served as Irving and Jean Stone Chair in Physical Sciences and Christopher S. Foote Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles, USA.

Since 2012, Omar Yaghi has served as James and Neeltje Tretter Chair Professor of Chemistry at the University of California (UC), Berkeley, and Senior Faculty Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, CA, USA. Yaghi is the Founding Director of the Berkeley Global Science Institute, which builds research centers in developing countries and supports young scientists. He is also Co-Director of the Kavli Energy NanoSciences Institute at UC Berkeley and the California Research Alliance by BASF.

Among many other awards, Omar Yaghi has received the Sacconi Medal from the Italian Chemical Society (SCI) in 2004, the U.S. Materials Research Society Medal in 2007, the American Chemical Society (ACS) Award in the Chemistry of Materials in 2009, the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) Centenary Prize in 2010, the RSC Spiers Memorial Award in 2017, the Japan Society of Coordination Chemistry International Award in 2017, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Gregori Aminoff Prize in 2019, and the 2021 August Wilhelm von Hofmann Medal of the German Chemical Society (GDCh). Omar Yaghi is an Elected Member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and serves on numerous Editorial Boards and Advisory Boards of scientific journals.

 

Source

[1] Website of the Nobel Foundation nobelprize.org

 

Selected Publications

Selected Publications by Susumu Kitagawa


Selected Publications by Richard Robson


Selected Publications by Omar M. Yaghi

 

Also of Interest

Interview: Chemical Solution to the CO2 Problem
Omar Yaghi talks to about the ability of a COF to adsorb CO₂ and its potential to solve the CO₂ problem, his research and the opening of the field of reticular chemistry, the use of chemistry to solve societal challenges such as climate change or water scarcity, how and why chemistry needs to be made more attractive and accessible, and the evolving role of the chemist.

 

 

 

 

 

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