The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded on Wednesday to Susumu Kitagawa (1951), Richard Robson (1937) and Omar M. Yaghi (1965) for their research into so-called metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). The three chemists made important contributions to the design of a then new type of molecular architecture: structures containing large spaces where molecules can enter and exit.
Their inventions are now being applied in practice, including to filter pollutants such as PFAS from water, to deliver medicines into the body and to reduce CO2 to be captured from the air. There are now tens of thousands of different types of MOFs. The three chemists received the Nobel Prize because they built the first metal-organic frameworks, developed them into more complex structures and showed that they can be extremely stable and useful.
Richard Robson laid the foundation for the MOF in the 1970s, inspired by the molecular structure of a diamond: one carbon molecule bonds to four others in that structure, creating a pyramid structure. Robson succeeded, against all expectations of colleagues, to build a similar crystal-like and stable structure with completely different particles. But instead of the ‘dense’ diamond structure, a structure with cavities emerged. Kitagawa and Yaghi continued to tinker with these findings and succeeded in making increasingly stable MOFs, into which different substances move in and out.
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