Scientists Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar Yaghi won the 2025 Nobel chemistry prize for developing a new form of molecular architecture, yielding materials that can help tackle challenges such as climate change and lack of fresh water.
The three laureates worked to create molecular constructions with large spaces through which gases and other chemicals can flow and that can be utilized to harvest water from desert air, capture carbon dioxide or store toxic gases.
The academy said some of these materials had a remarkably large surface area — a porous material roughly the same amount as a small sugar cube could contain as much surface area as a large football pitch.
“A small amount of such material can be almost like Hermione’s handbag in Harry Potter. It can store huge amounts of gas in a tiny volume,” Olof Ramstrom, member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry said.
A small amount of such material can be almost like Hermione’s handbag in Harry Potter. It can store huge amounts of gas in a tiny volume.– Olof Ramstrom, Nobel committee member
Their breakthroughs grew over a period of several years, the commitee said, beginning with Robson in 1989 and including the contributions of Kitagawa and Yaghi between 1992 and 2003.
Kitagawa, 74, is a professor at Kyoto University in Japan. He told the Nobel media conference that he was deeply honoured by the award.
“My dream is to capture air and separate air to — for instance, in CO2 [carbon dioxide] or oxygen or water or something — and convert this to useful materials using renewable energy,” he said.
One promising field is carbon capture in cement manufacturing, one of dirtiest industrial processes that accounts for seven per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are already being used at some cement plants to capture it before it is being released into the atmosphere.
After the discoveries, chemists have built tens of thousands of different MOFs, some of which “may contribute to solving some of humankind’s greatest challenges,” the academy said, adding that additional uses included separating toxic PFAS, or “forever chemicals,” from water and breaking down traces of pharmaceuticals in the environment.
Science ‘the greatest equalizing force,’ winner says
Yaghi, 60, was born to Palestinian refugees in Jordan, where his family shared a one-room home with the cattle the family was raising.
“It’s quite a journey and science allows you to do it,” he said in an interview published on the Nobel website, adding that his parents could barely read or write. “Science is the greatest equalizing force in the world,” he said.
Yaghi, a professor at the University of California-Berkeley, said he was astonished and delighted to win the award. He was 10 years old when he found a book on molecules in the library, and said that was the beginning of a life-long love of chemistry.
Robson, now 88, was born in Britain but moved to Australia in his late 20s. A professor at the University of Melbourne, he said he got the call at his Victoria state home from Stockholm half an hour before the official announcement.
“I prepared fish for dinner with my wife, and then I did the washing up afterwards,” he told Reuters.
Though he had recently sworn off alcohol for health reasons, Robson said he “broke that rule by having a glass of very cheap wine.”
The Nobel awards, which are also handed out for outstanding achievements in physics, chemistry, literature and peace, come with a prize amount of 11 million Swedish crowns ($1.6 million Cdn).
The prize for literature will be awarded on Thursday and the Nobel Peace Prize is to be announced on Friday. The economics prize will be announced Oct. 13.
The Nobel Prizes are presented to the laureates in a ceremony on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel’s death.
