The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has announced that the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry will be awarded to Japanese scientist Beikuan, British scientist Richard Robson, and Jordanian-born scientist Omar M. Aygi, in recognition of their "contribution to the development of metal organic frame materials."
The jury believes that the winner has developed a new molecular structure. The structures they created-metal-organic frameworks, contain large cavities into which molecules can flow in and out. Researchers use them to collect water from desert air, extract pollutants from the water, capture carbon dioxide and store hydrogen.
"Metal-organic frameworks have enormous potential, opening up previously unforeseen opportunities for tailoring materials with new functionality," said Heiner Link, chairman of the Nobel Prize Committee in Chemistry.
In 1989, according to the official website of the Nobel Prize, Richard Robson attempted a new way to exploit the inherent properties of atoms. He would combine the copper ions with positive electricity with a four-arm molecule; each arm end of this molecule had a chemical cluster that could attract the copper ions. When they were combined, they concentrated into an orderly, empty crystal, like a diamond filled with countless holes.
Robson immediately realized the potential of the molecular structure he built, but it was unstable and easy to collapse.·Yaji further laid a solid foundation for this construction method. Between 1992 and 2003, they made a series of revolutionary discoveries. Kitagawa proved that gases can flow into and out of this structure, and predicted that metal-organic frameworks could achieve flexibility. Yaji has created a very stable metal-organic framework and proved that it can be modified with a sound design that gives it entirely new and desirable properties.
Following the breakthrough discoveries of the above-mentioned winners, chemists have built tens of thousands of different organic frameworks for metals, some of which may help address some of the major challenges facing humans, and their applications include separating all-fluoride and polyfluoride-based substances from water, decomposing trace drugs in the environment, capturing carbon dioxide, or obtaining water from desert air.
The 74-year-old Shinzo Kitagawa is currently the vice president of the Institute for Advanced Study at Kyoto University. Shinzo Kitagawa is engaged in research on porous coordination polymers (PCPs) and metal-organic structures (MOFs). In 1997, the coordination polymer structure was discovered to have gas adsorption properties.
Richard Robson, 88, is known as a "pioneer in crystal engineering involving transition metals." He has been awarded an academician of the Australia Academy of Sciences and was elected an academician of the Royal Society.
Omar M. Yaji's experience is very legendary. He was born in Amman, Jordan in 1965 to a refugee family from Palestine. When he was a child, Yaji lived in a room with eight brothers and sisters in his family. The other half of the room had to be given to livestock, and there were no public facilities, running water and electricity.
When Yagi was 15 years old, he moved to the United States with the encouragement of his father. Without understanding English, he relied on hard work to obtain a bachelor's degree from the State University of New York at the age of 20. After receiving his doctorate at the age of 35, he has made great progress in the field of chemical scientific research and won many awards. Yaghi is currently a university professor with the highest academic title at the University of California, Berkeley, and a current member of the National Academy of Sciences. In 2021, the King of Saudi Arabia issued a royal decree granting Yadji Saudi citizenship.
When Yaji was a child, municipal water supply usually came only once every other week or two, and each time lasted only 6 hours. During this period, the water storage tank at home had to be filled. One of his main jobs when he was a child was to reserve as much domestic water for his home as possible when supplying water. Now, he is excited when he discovers organic framework materials that can be used to collect water, and the feasibility of collecting water from air, especially desert air. He clearly foresees that this technology is expected to solve one of today's most pressing social problems.
Red Star reporter Wang Yalin trainee reporter