By Johan Ahlander and Niklas Pollard
Stockholm (Reuters) – Susumu Kitagawa scientists, Richard Robson and Omar Yaghi won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2025 for developing a new form of molecular architecture, producing materials that can help address challenges such as climate change and lack of fresh water.
The three winners worked to create molecular constructions with large spaces through which gases and other chemical substances can flow and can be used to collect desert air water, capture carbon dioxide or store toxic gases.
The Academy said that some of these materials had a remarkably large surface: a porous material approximately the same size as a small lump of sugar could contain as much surface as a large soccer field.
“A small amount of this material can be almost like Hermione’s bag in Harry Potter. It can store huge amounts of gas in a tiny volume,” said Olof Ramstrom, a member of the Nobel Committee of Chemistry.
‘New opportunities to solve challenges’
The award, which has more than a century old, is awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the winners share 11 million Swedish crowns (1.2 million dollars), as well as the reputation of possibly winning the most prestigious scientific prize in the world.
Kitagawa said at the Nobel’s press conference that he felt deeply honored by the prize.
“My dream is to capture air and separate it, for example in CO2, oxygen, water or something, and turn it into useful materials using renewable energy,” he said.
Kitagawa is a professor at the University of Kyoto in Japan, while Robson is a professor at the University of Melbourne, Australia, and Yaghi is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, in the United States.
“Through the development of organometallic structures, the winners have provided new opportunities to solve some of the challenges we face,” said the agency that awarded the prize in a statement.
Third Nobel Prize 2025, Literature next Thursday
The Nobel Prize was the third prize announced in this year’s awards series, following the tradition, after those of Medicine and Physics announced earlier this week.
Established by the will of the Swedish inventor and entrepreneur Alfred Nobel, the awards for achievements in science, literature and peace have been awarded since 1901, with some interruptions mainly due to world wars.
The Nobel himself was chemical and his advances in that field helped underpin the wealth that he accumulated with his invention of dynamite in the nineteenth century. The Economy Award is a subsequent addition financed by the Swedish Central Bank.
Sometimes eclipsed by more famous awards in the fields of physics, literature and peace, chemistry awards have still recognized many influential discoveries such as nuclear fission, DNA sequencing techniques and yeast. Last year’s chemistry award was for American scientists David Baker and John Jumper and the British Demis Hassabis for his work in decoding the structure of proteins and the creation of new ones, which allowed advances in areas such as drug development.
(1 dollar = 9,3436 Swedish crowns)
(Niklas Pollard report, Simon Johnson and Johan Ahlander in Stockholm; Additional report by Teje Solsvik in Oslo, Greta Rosen Fondahn and Marie Mannes in Stockholm; edited by Alex Richardson)
(Tagstotranslate) Richard Robson (T) Susumu Kitagawa (T) Omar Yaghi (T) Molecular Architecture (T) Chemistry Prize (T) Alfred Nobel