The 2025 Nobel Prize for Chemistry was awarded for the creation of metal-organic frameworks, molecular structures that can capture COâ‚‚, filter pollutants from water, or trap moisture from desert air.
Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson, and Omar Yaghi discovered that copper ions could be used to create a crystal with large cavities within it, which was porous to smaller atoms and molecules but blocked larger ones.
The materials act as customizable molecular sponges: The cavities can be made in different forms, allowing the sponges to capture or process different substances, and opening up enormous possibilities for environmental and industrial applications.