"To celebrate receiving a call from the Nobel Committee, I broke the rule of sobriety."

One of the winners of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Richard, is now 88 years old.RobsonProfessor, a British-born scholar who currently works at the University of Melbourne in Australia, shared his feelings after winning the world¡¯s top scientific honours in a very simple and humble way.

Pictured is Richard Robson

According to reports, on October 8th, local time, half an hour before the official announcement of the Nobel Prize was released, Professor Robson received a phone call from Stockholm at his home outside Melbourne. There was no big party or noisy celebration, and he spent this special moment in an extremely calm way.

¡°I (and my wife) cooked fish at dinner and then washed the dishes,¡± he described.Professor Robson said that he recently stopped drinking for health reasons, but for this special day he broke the custom that I drank a glass of very cheap red wine and broke that rule.¡±

Professor Robson continued to insist on his teaching and research positions despite the years he had gone on. He said in an interview that he was very happy about the award, but on the other hand he felt a bit uncomfortable,¡± he said, ¡°It was a big thing that happened in my later years of life, and at this time I was no longer able to fully endure it.¡±

Professor Robson is one of the pioneers in the creation of a new molecular structure called the Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOF). This pioneering research has been able to produce materials like ¡°magic handbags¡± that store large amounts of gas in very small volumes, and is expected to make a huge contribution to mankind¡¯s response to climate change and addressing environmental problems such as water shortages. With him this honour is also shared by Professor Omar Yaki of Kyoto University, Japan, and Professor Omar Yaki of the University of California, Berkeley, USA.

In the eyes of his colleagues, Professor Robson¡¯s success stems from his decades-long love and humility. The University of Melbourne rated him as follows: ¡°Professor Robson is a humble man who has earned this honor by doing what he loves ¨C going into the lab every day, talking to students, and having been thinking and experimenting with chemistry for decades. He uses his wisdom and a wonderful story about how to create the original instances of what is now known as MOF, and he works with countless scholars and students and inspires the latter.¡±

Red Star Journalist Editorial.

Extended reading

One of the Nobel Prize winners in Chemistry was a Palestinian refugee who shared a room with eight brothers and sisters when he was a child.

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.

2025 Nobel Prize winners in chemistry

"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. Nevertheless, North Cave and Omar M. Yaghi further laid a solid foundation for this method of construction, and between 1992 and 2003 they each made a series of revolutionary discoveries. North Cave proved that gas can flow into and out of this structure, and predicted that metal organic framework can flexibility. Yaghi created a very stable metal organic framework, and proved that it can be modified by reasonable designs to give it a brand new and ideal performance.

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announces winners

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. Born in Amman, Jordan in 1965 to a refugee family from Palestine, Yaghi lived in a room with eight brothers and sisters in the family when he was a child. The other half of the room had to be used by livestock and there was no public facilities, running water or electricity.

The picture shows Omar M. Yagitu according to vision china

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.

At the time of Aghiel, the municipal water supply usually only comes once every week or two, each lasting only 6 hours, during which time the home must be filled with water storage tanks, One of his main tasks as a child was to reserve as much water as possible for the home when it was water supplied. Today, when he discovered the organic frame materials that could be used to collect water,And the feasibility of collecting water from air, especially desert air, he was excited. He clearly foresees that this technology is expected to solve one of today's most pressing social problems.