Trio Working on Metal-Organic Frameworks Wins Chemistry Nobel Prize

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson, and Omar M. Yaghi for their work on the development of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), Al Jazeera reported.

The Nobel Committee said the trio created “molecular constructions with large spaces through which gases and other chemicals can flow.” (Illustration: Niklas Elmehed, The Nobel Prize)

The three scientists, who received the award on Wednesday, are affiliated with Kyoto University in Japan, the University of Melbourne in Australia, and the University of California, Berkeley, in the United States, respectively.

The Nobel Committee said the trio created “molecular constructions with large spaces through which gases and other chemicals can flow.”

Such structures can harvest water from desert air, capture carbon dioxide, store toxic gases, or break down traces of pharmaceuticals in the environment.

Tuesday’s Physics Prize went to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret, and John M. Martinis for their research on the strange world of subatomic quantum tunneling, which advances the power of digital communications and computing.

The award ceremony will be held on December 10, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, the wealthy Swedish industrialist and inventor of dynamite, who died in 1896.