What Are Metal–Organic Frameworks? The 2025 Chemistry Nobel
The 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry honored Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar Yaghi for developing porous, designable crystals called metal–organic frameworks.
Timeline
- 1989: Richard Robson demonstrated a spacious crystal assembled from metal ions and multi-armed organic molecules.
- 1990s–early 2000s: Susumu Kitagawa and Omar Yaghi established gas-accessible, flexible, stable and rationally designed frameworks.
- October 8, 2025: The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the chemistry prize to Kitagawa, Robson and Yaghi.
Metal–organic frameworks, usually shortened to MOFs, are crystalline materials built from metal ions or clusters connected by carbon-based organic linkers. Their repeating structures create pores and channels on a molecular scale. The 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry went to Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar M. Yaghi for developing this new form of molecular architecture. [1][2]
A useful analogy is a building frame: metal components act like corner pieces and organic molecules act like beams joining them. The empty spaces are part of the design rather than defects. Molecules can enter, leave or react inside those cavities. Changing the metal, linker, pore size or chemical surface can make a framework interact selectively with particular substances. [1][2]
Robson's 1989 experiment showed that carefully shaped molecular building blocks could assemble into an ordered, spacious network. The early material was fragile, but it demonstrated the geometric idea. Kitagawa later built frameworks with open channels that could absorb and release gases without losing their overall structure and proposed that some MOFs could flex as they filled or emptied. [1][2]
Yaghi's work established unusually stable frameworks and a systematic way to design families of related materials. MOF-5, for example, offered large internal surface area, and later variants used different linkers to change cavity sizes and properties. This rational design principle helped turn isolated structures into a broad materials platform with tens of thousands of reported frameworks. [1][2]
Potential uses follow from the pores. Researchers can design MOFs to store gases, separate one molecule from another, capture carbon dioxide, remove pollutants from water or provide surfaces that accelerate chemical reactions. Demonstrations have also harvested water vapor from dry desert air. These examples show capability, but a successful laboratory material still has to meet practical requirements for cost, durability, scale and repeated use. [1][2]
MOFs are not a single substance with one performance level. Each framework has its own composition, stability and selectivity. A material suited to methane storage may be unsuitable for drinking-water treatment, and a highly porous structure may degrade in moisture or under industrial conditions. Claims about a particular application therefore need evidence about the exact framework and operating environment. [1][2]
The Nobel recognition centered on the architecture and the principles that made it controllable. Robson introduced a way to build open molecular networks; Kitagawa showed that accessible and flexible pores could work; Yaghi demonstrated stability and rational variation. Together, those advances gave chemists a toolkit for designing internal spaces with specific functions, which is why MOFs now connect fundamental chemistry with environmental, energy and industrial research. [1][2]
Sources
- Nobel Prize — 2025 chemistry press release
- Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences — Popular background on metal–organic frameworks