This year’s Nobel Prize winners in chemistry – Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson, and Omar Yaghi – were recognized for developing an innovative form of molecular architecture that allows for the creation of spatial, porous structures capable of storing and transporting gases and other chemical compounds.

The laureates developed metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), in which metal ions act as “cornerstones” connected by long organic (carbon) molecules. Together, they form ordered crystals with large cavities and channels. This allows chemists to design MOFs to capture specific substances, conduct chemical reactions, or conduct electricity.

“Metal-organic frameworks offer enormous potential, paving the way for materials with new functions that previously seemed impossible,” emphasizes Heiner Linke, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry.

Work on MOFs began in 1989, when Richard Robson first combined positively charged copper ions with a four-armed molecule to form a crystal filled with numerous cavities. Although the structure was unstable at the time, subsequent research by Susumu Kitagawa and Omar Yaghi led to the creation of stable and modifiable MOFs. Kitagawa demonstrated that gases can flow through the structures and predicted the possibility of creating flexible MOFs, while Yaghi developed a very stable framework and showed how to give it desired properties through molecular design.

Today, scientists have built tens of thousands of different MOFs. Their applications include purifying water of toxic substances, capturing carbon dioxide, recovering water from desert air, and facilitating chemical reactions in industrial processes. The development of these structures may in the future contribute to solving some of humanity’s greatest challenges.