U.S. scientist among trio awarded chemistry Nobel for developing new molecular architecture
Susumu Kitagawa scientists, Richard Robson and Omar Mr. Yaghi received the Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday for developing a new form of molecular architecture.
Kitagawa is a professor at Kyoto University in Japan while Robson is a professor at Melbourne University, Australia, and Yaghi is a professor at the University of California in Berkeley, in the United States.
“Thanks to the development of metallo-organic structures, the winners offered chemists new opportunities to resolve some of the challenges we face,” said the Royal Academy of Sciences in Sweden.
The trio has created molecular constructions that can be used to recover water from the desert air and capture carbon dioxide, the academy said.
“They have found ways to create materials, entirely new materials, with large cavities inside which can be seen almost as hotel rooms, so that the guest molecules can enter and get out of the same material,” said Heiner Linke, president of the Nobel Committee of Chemistry.
“A small amount of this material can look almost like Hermione’s handbag in Harry Potter. It can store huge amounts of gas in a tiny volume,” he added.
