2025 Chemistry Nobel Goes to Molecular Sponges That Purify Water, Store Energy, and Clean Up the Environment
October 7, 2025
2 Min read
2025 Chemistry Nobel goes to molecular sponges that purify water, store energy and clean the environment
Three scientists, including one of the United States, shares the Nobel Prize for Chemistry 2025 for the development of “metal-organic frames”, versatile molecular cages which can trap contaminants, store energy and possibly deliver drugs to specific areas of the body.
Vanbeets / Getty images (medal)
The Nobel Prize for Chemistry 2025 has been awarded for a versatile technology that can be used to an astonishing variety of objectives, from environmental sanitation to the delivery of drugs and energy storage.
Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar M. Yaghi shared the price for their development of metal-organic frameworks, chemical cages that have small openings that can capture other small and various molecules. MOFs, as they are known, are explored for their use in wastewater cleaning, elimination of PFAs, timed or multi-drug release systems, etc.
The cages are made of metallic ions maintained together by organic molecules or containing carbon. Cages can be one -dimensional or multidimensional, and they can be formed from a multitude of metals and organic links.
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Richard Robson of the University of Melbourne imagined the first MOFs, inspired by the tetrahedral or pyramid shape that carbon atoms take to form diamonds. He mixed a form of copper with a nitrile, an organic compound with carbon nitrogen, and looked at a repetitive structure with small holes.
Susumu Kitagawa, from the University of Kyoto and Omar Mr. Yaghi, from the University of California to Berkeley, continued the MOF Research and Applications. Kitagawa created flexible MOFs and learned that gases could enter and get MOF. He told the public on Wednesday at a Nobel press conference in Stockholm that his dream was to use MOF to separate air components for the manufacture of other materials, via reusable energy. Yaghi, widely credited for the widening of MOF development, has created stable frames from numerous combinations of metallic ions and organic binders.
The three researchers will divide the Nobel Prize, which amounts to 11 million Swedish Kronor, or about $ 1 million.
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