Trio win Chemistry Nobel 2025 for metal–organic frameworks

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is being awarded to Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar M. Yaghi “for the development of metal–organic frameworks.,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced on Wednesday (October 8, 2025).

The Nobel Prize laureates in chemistry 2025 have created molecular constructions with large spaces through which gases and other chemicals can flow. These constructions, metal-organic frameworks, can be used to harvest water from desert air, capture carbon dioxide, store toxic gases or catalyse chemical reactions.

 In 1989, Richard Robson tested utilising the inherent properties of atoms in a new way by combining positively charged copper ions with a four-armed molecule; this had a chemical group that was attracted to copper ions at the end of each arm. Though the molecular construction had potential, it was unstable and collapsed easily.

However, Susumu Kitagawa and Omar Yaghi provided this building method with a firm foundation. Kitagawa showed that gases can flow in and out of the constructions and predicted that MOFs could be made flexible. Yaghi created a very stable MOF and showed that it can be modified using rational design, giving it new and desirable properties.

The 2024 Nobel Prize for chemistry was shared by David Baker “for computational protein design” along with Demis Hassabis and John Jumper “for protein structure prediction,”

Nobel Prize announcements kicked off on Monday (October 6, 2025) with the Prize for Physiology or Medicine. Three scientists – Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell, and Shimon Sakaguchi shared the Medicine Nobel for identifying the immune system’s security guards, regulatory T cells. Physics Nobel, announced on Tuesday (October 7), was awarded to John Clarke, Michel Devoret, and John Martini for building device showing ‘quantum tunnelling’.

The winners of the Literature, Peace and Economic Sciences Prize will be declared on October 9, October 10, and October 13 respectively.

The prizes carry a cash award of 11 million Swedish kronor (approximately ₹1.03 crore) and will be awarded on December 10.

The Nobel Prize was created by Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel, who in his will dictated that his estate should be used to fund “prizes to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind”.