According to CCTV news, on October 8 local time, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences decided to award the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar M. Yagi. Yaghi) three scientists in recognition of their contributions in the development of metal-organic frameworks.
Overall, the three winners created molecular structures with large spaces through which gases and other chemicals can pass. These structures are metal organic frames (MOFs) that can be used to collect water from desert air, capture carbon dioxide, store toxic gases or catalytic chemical reactions.
Decisive materials of the 21st century
In 1989, Richard Robson created a new chemical group molecule in a new way. He combined positively charged copper ions with four-armed molecules to form a chemical group that was adsorbed by the copper ion at the end of each arm. When they combine, they form an orderly, spacious crystal, like a diamond filled with countless spaces. This is the metal-organic framework.
Although this molecular structure has great potential value in theory and application, it is unstable and easy to collapse. Later, N. K. D. and J. Agi provided a solid foundation for the solid and practical application of this chemical cluster. Between 1992 and 2003, they respectively made a series of breakthrough discoveries.
Kitagawa's research shows that gases can flow into and out of metal-organic frameworks and predicts that metal-organic frameworks can become more flexible. Yagi created a very stable metal-organic framework and proved that it could be modified with reasonable design, giving it new and ideal characteristics.
Robson created the Metal Organic Framework, and Nagoyaoui and Aghi improved and rationalized the metal Organic Framework and gave the fields, scope and patterns that could be applied in production and life, respectively. As Haina Linke, President of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, said, “The Metal Organic Framework has huge potential and offers unprecedented opportunities for customized materials with new functions.”
After years of development and improvement, metal organic frames have become a huge new type of material for use and can produce a variety of products. Metal organic frames are a polyporous material that is made of metal ions (or uranium) and organic adjuvants connected through the allocation key. This structure will form a highly orderly, three-dimensional crystal network containing huge, adjustable holes.
Metal-organic frameworks not only have the activity of metals, but also obtain the flexibility of organic ligands, the selectivity of chemical functional groups and other physical and chemical properties, as well as the special spatial structure formed by coordination. The perfect combination of these special elements makes metal-organic frameworks predicted to be the decisive materials of the 21st century.
Has broad application prospects
Metal Organic FrameworkAs a superporous nanomaterial with extremely wide uses, ifThe internal surface area of one gram of metal organic frame extends and covers an even larger area than a football field. Now, chemists have designed more than 88,000 different metal organic frameworks.
Existing research has shown that metal-organic frameworks can be used for gas storage and separation, such as storing hydrogen and capturing carbon dioxide; can be used as a heterogeneous catalyst to promote chemical reactions; can also be used as a sensor to detect specific gases or chemical molecules; It can also be used to transport drugs, encapsulating drugs in the pores of the metal-organic framework for on-demand release.
So far, the best reflection of the application value of metal-organic frameworks is drug delivery. Drug molecules are often adsorbed on the pores or surfaces of metal-organic frameworks through hydrogen bonding, π-π stacking, coordination, electrostatic interaction, etc., making metal-organic frameworks a slow-release delivery carrier of drugs.
For example, the low cytotoxic porphyrin metal-organic framework PCN-221 has a high drug loading capacity for methotrexate (a drug for the treatment of cancer and autoimmune diseases). Methotrexate enters the pores and channels of PCN-221 through diffusion, and through its π-π interaction and hydrogen bonding with PCN-221, sustained release can be achieved in physiological environment to maintain the effective concentration of the drug.
In addition, specific metal organic frames can also carry insulin through co-crystallization to treat diabetes. In addition to loading the drug molecule to the metal organic frame gap or surface, it can also be combined with specific metal ions through the distribution points available in the drug molecule, allowing the drug to participate directly as an organic compound in the formation of the metal organic frame to transport the drug.
In the context of global climate change, metal-organic frameworks capture carbon from flue gases, which can effectively reduce carbon emissions.
In 2022, Canadian researchers developed a metal-organic framework called CALF-20 that can effectively capture carbon from flue gases. At 1.2 atmospheres and room temperature, CALF-20 can adsorb about 18% of its own weight of CO ˇ, and CALF-20 maintains excellent selective CO ˇ adsorption ability in various mixed gases. In an environment of 40% relative humidity, CALF-20 can even suppress water vapor and adsorb CO ˇ.
The metal organic frame also absorbs water vapour from the air and then releases water when the temperature rises to collect water from the desert. This technology is especially applicable to global desert areas, including the Sahara Desert in Africa, the Arab Desert in Asia and Africa, the Taclamatanga Desert and the Gobi Desert in Asia, and the Patagonia Desert in South America.
Now, the technology has been proven in laboratory tests and field trials in desert environments. Preliminary results show that the metal-organic framework can collect and provide more than one liter of water per kilogram per day, and the water quality is very clean.
Moreover, the metal-organic framework device does not rely on electricity and can use temperature changes to collect water, which is a clean energy-driven solution. In the future, this is an effective way to solve the problem of living and production water in desert and arid areas.
This year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery and application of metallic organic frameworks shows that these materials and products have broad prospects for the future and can greatly benefit human society.
Written by Zhang Tiankan (popular science writer)
Editor/Xu Qiuying
The School / Jan.