Japan’s Kitagawa, 2 Others Win 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Tokyo, Oct. 8 (Jiji Press)–The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said Wednesday that it has decided to award the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Japan’s Susumu Kitagawa, 74, professor at Kyoto University, and two other researchers “for the development of metal-organic frameworks.” Thirty Japanese individuals have won Nobel prizes, including Kitagawa, University of Osaka professor Shimon Sakaguchi, 74, who was named one of the three winners of this year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on Monday, and those who took U.S. nationality. Kitagawa is the ninth Japanese to receive the chemistry prize and the first since Akira Yoshino, 77, honorary fellow at major Japanese chemical maker Asahi Kasei Corp., won it in 2019. “I’m absolutely thrilled” Kitagawa said at a press conference held at Kyoto University, in the western Japan city of Kyoto. “I’ve been blessed with a good (research) environment,” he added. The other two winners of this year’s chemistry prize are Richard Robson, 88, professor at the University of Melbourne, and Omar Yaghi, 60, professor at the University of California, Berkeley. The award ceremony is set to be held in Stockholm on Dec. 10. The prize money of 11 million Swedish krona will be divided equally among the three laureates. A metal-organic framework, or MOF, also known as porous coordination polymer, is a new material that could potentially help resolve environmental and energy issues. Porous materials are substances with a myriad of nano-sized holes, with activated carbon being a prime example. Such materials have long been used for water purification and other purposes. Zeolites, which form both naturally and artificially, are widely used, including for water purification and as catalysts in the chemical industry. Their holes, however, are uneven in size. In 1997, Kitagawa synthesized the world’s first MOF, with a structure that combines metal ions and organic molecules. MOFs have a uniform gap within their structure and can be freely designed according to purpose. A tweak of the size of the gap enables the absorption of specific gases such as carbon dioxide and oxygen. The utilization of MOFs could make it possible to efficiently remove pollutants from the atmosphere and impurities from oil, and safely store and transport dangerous gases and hydrogen, which is expected to become a next-generation energy source. Efforts are underway to put the new material into practical use in hopes of solving environmental, resource and energy problems. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]