By Deeksha Teri,TN Education Desk

Copyright timesnownews

Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar M. Yaghi have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry “for the development of metal-organic frameworks”. The announcement was made by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The laureates have been awarded for creating molecular constructions with large spaces through which gases and other chemicals can flow. The laureates developed a new type of molecular architecture. The constructions they created – metal-organic frameworks – contain large cavities in which molecules can flow in and out. Researchers have used them to harvest water from desert air, extract pollutants from water, capture carbon dioxide and store hydrogen. Also Read | From Tagore to Satyarthi: Indians Who Made the World Notice with Their Nobel Wins “Metal-organic frameworks have enormous potential, bringing previously unforeseen opportunities for custom-made materials with new functions,” says Heiner Linke, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry. Meet the laureates Susumu Kitagawa was born in 1951 in Japan’s Kyoto. In 1979, he earned a PhD in degree in hydrocarbon chemistry from Kyoto University, Japan. He is currently a Professor at Kyoto University, Japan. He has been the recipient of several other awards, with the latest (before Nobel Prize) being Fellow of the Royal Society in 2023. “I tell my students that challenge is very important in chemistry, in science,” Kitagawa shared an inspiring message for young researchers at this morning’s press conference for the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Richard Robson, born in 1937 in UK’s Glusburn (West Yorkshire), is currently a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Melbourne. He read chemistry at the University of Oxford (BA 1959, DPhil 1962), and then undertook postdoctoral research at California Institute of Technology between 1962-64 and at Stanford University between 1964-65, before receiving a Lectureship in chemistry at the University of Melbourne 1966-70 where he remained for the duration of his career. Omar M. Yaghi, born in 1965 in Jordan’s Amman, is currently a Professor at University of California, Berkeley, USA. After being born in a refugee family originally from Palestine, he moved to the United States at the encouragement of his father at the age of 15. After finishing his schooling, he began his graduate studies at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and received his PhD in 1990 under the guidance of Walter G. Klemperer. He was a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University (1990–1992) with Richard H. Holm.