Nobel Chemistry awarded for crystal content that can revolutionize green technology

Three scientists have been awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to discover a new form of molecular architecture: crystal with a large cavity.

Kyoto University, Japan will share the price of Susomo Katagawa from Japan, Richard Rubson from the Australian University of Melbourne, and California University in the United States, Omar M. Yagi from Berkeley University, 11 million Swedish Crown (70 870,000).

The award recognizes the initial contribution of three scientists in the development of something called Metal-Organic Framework (MOF). MOF Crystal is a diverse class of materials that have attracted a lot of attention to chemistry due to the presence of microscopic open cavity in their structure. They are helping to revolutionize the green technology, such as the cutting of water from the desert air and Co₂.

The width of the cavity is some nanomometer (one millimeter of one millimeter) to some English (a unit of an English length, a unit of one hundred million equal to one hundred million). This means that they are too small to look at the bare eye or even with most microscopes. But they are the best size for the housing of different molecules.

When the researchers began to discover the “coordination polymer”, the development of the MOF can be found by the end of the 1950s. These are the chains attached to the metal ions (have lost atoms or have lost electrons) and are the materials of carbon -based bridging molecules known as Linkker. These materials did not contain cavities, but they were based on the same metal organic chemistry that would later give birth to the MOF.

In the late 1980s, Rubson’s Research Group reported that some coordination could be manufactured as a polymer framework such as structures, where, importantly, carbon -based liners made three -dimensional arrangements around the clusters of liquid solvent molecules. As mentioned in Rubson’s research article, it has “revealed an unusual situation in which a crystal is undoubtedly liquid.”

In the mid -1990s, the Yagi group proved that even after removing the solvent molecules from the cavity, it is possible to produce coordination polymer who maintains their structure. It was a wonderful result, which removed the assumption that such frameworks are fragile and if the solvent is removed, it will fall.

In 1997, the Katagawa research group shows that open cavities can be used to absorb gas molecules. He also showed that, in many cases, this framework itself spreads because gas molecules are absorbed in it and when they are issued, the contracts. This coordination polymer is known as Permanent, with open cavities, known as MOF.

The discoveries of the three scientists effectively marked the birth of modern MOF chemistry, since thousands of research articles have been published.

Wide range of applications

Why are MOFs so interesting for chemists? Microscopic cavity within the MOF provides a unique and controlled location for chemistry. One of the major applications of MOF is gas storage. In many cases, these materials can keep gases at much density than their free gas condition.

It offers significant benefits for green technologies such as fuel cell -powered vehicles, which have to move hydrogen fuel more efficiently. Many MOFs work well for specific gases, which means they can also help separate the gas mixture into the pathway, or to catch the air to reduce the effects of global warming.

MOF can also serve as the effective effective catalists of chemical reactions in cavity. One of the key benefits of the MOF as catalists is to replace and replace metals and carbon -based liners for chemists so that properties can be arranged for a specific purpose.

Along with gas molecules, MOF can adjust other small molecules, such as pharmaceuticals. This means that they may be used to store and deliver drugs to a particular target, where their unsafe type allows for controlling chemicals.

In recent years, the MOF has promised many other applications, including batteries, thermal energy storage and chemical sensors (devices that monitor and detect and detect chemicals). Interestingly, there are many other applications left that cannot be searched yet.

Despite being discovered three decades ago, MOF is one of the hottest research sector in the chemistry of materials and there is no doubt that they will do so in many years to come.

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