I Offer My Reflections on the 2025 Nobel Prize for Chemistry and the Promise of Metal–Organic Frameworks for a Healthier and More Sustainable Planet, awarded to Richard Robson, Susumu Kitagawa, and Omar Yaghi
This story is curated for ILLUMINATION Scholar readers on Medium.
Dear subscribers,
When the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry earlier today, I was chatting with a few close scholarly friends. The names Richard Robson, Susumu Kitagawa, and Omar Yaghi appeared on the screen.
They were like household names to us. I knew Professor Dr Richard Robson one day would be a Nobel Laureate, and I desired him to be a
centenarian. He has been an honorary professor at the University of Melbourne, where I studied and lectured in the early 90s.
We paused for a moment with a deep breath, aware that this moment would echo far beyond the laboratories. This Nobel Prize honors three individuals, whose decades of collaboration have transformed a curiosity into a global hope for sustainability in these challenging times.
Our local newspaper, The Age, reported that “Olof Ramström described the trio’s discovery as similar to Hermione Granger’s enchanted handbag in the fictional Harry Potter series: small on the outside but very large on the inside.” I loved this metaphor for the reason that I will explain in this story in simple words.
Their recognition for the development of metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) is a story of how curiosity and compassion can merge into materials that may change how humanity interacts with our problematic planet.
I have followed their research for many years, and I have discussed their work in my lectures before my retirement. Yet this time, I wanted to explain it differently. I wanted to tell it as a different and simpler story that speaks to both the scholars and the responsible global citizen within each of us.
The Path from Curiosity to Collective Benefit from Three Eminent Scientists in Their 80s, 70s, and 60s
MOFs began as a question: Can metals and organic molecules link together to form open, stable structures rather than closed, rigid compounds?
In the early 1980s, when I was pursuing my undergraduate studies, I learned that Dr. Richard Robson, now 88, had begun constructing frameworks from metal ions and organic ligands. He became a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science (FAA) in 2000.
His results revealed that matter could organize itself in repeating, porous architectures. It was the spark that showed how molecular design could go beyond traditional chemistry.
I have many fond memories of Dr. Robson, who is affiliated with the University of Melbourne, where I completed one of my postgraduate studies decades ago.
Dr Susumu Kitagawa, over a decade younger than Dr Robson, from Kyoto University, advanced the concept further.
He found ways to make these delicate frameworks strong enough to absorb gases like carbon dioxide and to maintain their integrity after repeated use.
Dr Kitagawa demonstrated that these structures could breathe, absorb, and release without collapsing.
Dr Omar Yaghi, from the University of California, who is two decades younger than Dr Robson, then expanded the idea into a design philosophy he called reticular chemistry.
He built a logic for creating crystalline frameworks that combine strength, openness, and predictability. With his methods, scientists could now design materials atom by atom with desired properties.
Together, they redefined the essence of materials science. Chemistry was no longer confined to mixing compounds; it became a process of molecular architecture guided by intention and imagination for human use.
The New Green Chemistry of Hope
What Makes MOFs So Extraordinary
When I used to describe MOFs to my undergraduate science students, I asked them to picture a three-dimensional scaffold where metal atoms serve as the connecting points and organic linkers act as the bridges between them.
Inside this structure exist countless microscopic chambers. These cavities can hold gases, liquids, or even large molecules. The internal surface area is immense. For example, sometimes it can be greater than that of a football field within a single gram of material.
By choosing different metals and linkers, chemists can design MOFs that capture specific molecules, such as carbon dioxide, while allowing others to pass through. This ability to fine-tune function at the molecular level makes MOFs one of the most versatile classes of materials ever created.
In essence, MOFs are laboratories in themselves, like molecular spaces where matter can be stored, separated, or transformed.
Over 90,000 MOF variants have emerged since Dr. Yaghi’s 1995 discovery of crystalline frameworks, demonstrating the field’s rapid growth [Nature Chemistry, 2024].
How These Materials Can Serve Humanity
I used to remind my science students that true science (utilitarian) would reach its highest value when it connects innovation to compassion.
MOFs exemplify this union. Their applications address several of the most urgent challenges of our time.
I will give you a high-level perspective in five sections in simple terms:
1 — Capturing Carbon and Reducing Climate Burden
MOFs can capture carbon dioxide from industrial emissions and prevent it from reaching the atmosphere. Some variants even extract it directly from ambient air. Once captured, the gas can be stored or converted into useful chemicals. This capacity represents a scientific approach to climate responsibility.
2 — Storing Hydrogen for Clean Energy
Hydrogen is a promising clean fuel, but it poses challenges in terms of safe and efficient storage. MOFs can hold hydrogen within their intricate pores, creating compact and secure storage systems. If developed at scale, this could enable a new generation of vehicles and energy grids powered by hydrogen.
3 — Harvesting Water from Desert Air
Few discoveries feel as poetic as this one. Certain MOFs can absorb water vapor from the air at night and release it as liquid water when warmed by the morning sun. This principle could provide a renewable source of water for communities living in arid regions where every drop is precious.
4 — Cleaning Polluted Water
Modern pollutants, including PFAS, pharmaceutical residues, and heavy metals, have contaminated water systems worldwide. MOFs can be engineered to target and remove these toxins. Their microscopic selectivity allows them to clean water without altering its essential minerals.
5 — Advancing Medicine and Green Chemistry
In medicine, MOFs can act as carriers that deliver drugs to specific sites in the body. In chemical industries, they can catalyze reactions, transforming captured carbon dioxide into useful materials and reducing waste. Each new study expands its role in environmental and biomedical innovation.
Challenges and Responsibilities
Every breakthrough brings new responsibilities. MOFs hold immense promise, yet their journey to large-scale adoption involves serious challenges.
Producing them economically remains complex. Some degrade when exposed to humidity or changes in temperature.
The energy required for regeneration after gas or water capture can offset their environmental benefits if the process depends on fossil fuels.
Researchers are addressing these issues through artificial intelligence-assisted design, sustainable synthesis methods, and efforts to improve durability.
However, the ethical dimension remains clear: progress must be guided by environmental safety and public accountability.
When I used to teach young scientists and aspiring inventors, I emphasized that true invention and innovation include immense responsibility.
The goal is not merely to invent or innovate, but to ensure that inventions and innovations serve life rather than harm it.
Unfortunately, some great inventions and innovations injured or killed millions of people. They still do so due to poor or irresponsible designs and implementations, often accompanied by unethical use.
Conclusions and Key Takeaways
This Nobel Prize is a reminder that chemistry can evolve from extraction to restoration. It demonstrates that science, when designed and implemented with care, can help balance our relationship with the environment.
The work of Dr. Robson, Dr. Kitagawa, and Dr. Yaghi offers an important lesson: when knowledge is shared freely and shaped by a collective purpose, chemistry becomes a language of hope.
It also illustrates that collaboration across cultures and disciplines is essential for meaningful progress. These scientists worked in different parts of the world, yet their discoveries converged to form a single contribution to humanity.
I’d like to highlight six key points as takeaways related to this story.
1. A New Era of Molecular Design: MOFs represent a turning point in chemistry, where materials can be designed atom by atom for environmental, medical, and industrial applications. They show that intention is now a scientific variable.
2. Environmental Solutions Can Begin at the Molecular Scale: Problems such as carbon emissions, water scarcity, and pollution can be addressed with precise molecular tools rather than massive mechanical systems. This insight changes how we think about sustainability.
3. Science as a Moral Endeavor: Innovation without ethics risks becoming exploitation. MOF research reminds us that scientific creativity carries moral weight. Every step forward should reflect responsibility toward nature and society.
4. The Public as a Partner in Science: The success of MOFs will depend not only on laboratories but on the willingness of societies to adopt clean technologies and support sustainable research. Public understanding can accelerate the shift from curiosity to application.
5. Collaboration Across Disciplines: Chemists, physicists, engineers, environmental scientists, and policymakers must work together to integrate MOFs into real systems. Such unity is the foundation of meaningful progress.
6. The Future of Chemistry is Compassionate: The 2025 Nobel Prize does more than honor three eminent scientists. It honors a vision of chemistry that builds bridges between matter and meaning. It reminds us that even at the smallest scale, science can express empathy for the planet.
From my perspective, this Nobel Prize is an invitation to everyone who believes that human intelligence can be a force for healing.
The next step is not only to understand these frameworks but to apply, design, and implement them in ways that make our world more breathable, drinkable, and livable.
Here is the official announcement for the 2025 chemistry awards by the Nobel Committee.
I also wrote about the high-level ideas of winners in Physiology or Medicine given to Dr Mary E. Brunkow, Dr Fred Ramsdell, and Dr Shimon Sakaguchi for the 2025 Nobel. The key concept is peripheral tolerance.
For readers interested in this topic, I’d like to provide three relevant and most cited references among hundreds of this Innovation, from newest to oldest.
Han, Z., et al (2025). Development of the design and synthesis of metal–organic frameworks (MOFs): From large-scale attempts, functional-oriented modifications, to artificial intelligence (AI) predictions. Chemical Society Reviews, 54, 367–395. DOI: 10.1039/D4CS00432A
Furukawa, H., et al (2013). The chemistry and applications of metal–organic frameworks. Science, 341(6149), 1230444. DOI: 10.1126/science.1230444
Kitagawa, S., & Uemura, K. (2005). Dynamic porous properties of coordination polymers inspired by hydrogen bonds. Chemical Society Reviews, 34(2), 109–119. DOI: 10.1039/b313997m
Thank you for reading my story. I will also share my thoughts on two other new Nobel Prizes soon, as they are also close to my heart in my areas of interest.
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