Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson, and Omar M. Yaghi were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry on Wednesday “for the development of metal-organic frameworks.”
Why did the Nobel Committee say they received the prize?
The scientists are responsible for developing new, large-scale molecular structures through which gases and other chemicals can flow freely. These structures, known as metal-organic frameworks, have a wide range of uses, including collecting water from air, capturing toxic gases and trapping carbon dioxide.
Their experiments, which began in the 1980s, laid the foundation for the development of thousands of other metal-organic structures.
“Some of these may contribute to solving some of humankind’s greatest challenges,” the Nobel Committee for Chemistry said in announcing the award.
Who are the winners?
Richard Robson is a professor at the University of Melbourne in Australia, where he has taught since 1966.
Susumu Kitagwa received his Ph.D. in 1979 from Kyoto University in Japan, where he now teaches.
Omar M. Yaghi received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
It was Dr. Robson who first experimented with metal-organic frameworks in 1989, when he combined copper ions with four-armed molecules, the committee said. The result was a sort of crystal with large cavities, indicating that molecules might be able to move in and out of the framework easily.
But the structure was unstable and collapsed quickly. That initial experiment was built on by Dr. Kitagawa and Dr. Yaghi, whose work from 1992 to 2003 helped stabilize the framework that Dr. Robson had created, the committee said.
Who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2024?
The prize went to Demis Hassabis, John Jumper and David Baker for work that showed the potential of artificial intelligence and other technology to predict the shape of proteins and to invent new ones.
Who else has won a Nobel Prize this year?
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Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi received the physiology or medicine prize on Monday for their discoveries of peripheral immune tolerance — the system that explains how the immune system prevents rogue cells from attacking tissues and organs.
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John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis were awarded the physics prize on Tuesday for showing that two properties of quantum mechanics, the physical laws that rule the subatomic realm, could be observed in a system large enough to see with the naked eye.
When will the other Nobel Prizes be announced?
The prize for chemistry was the third of six Nobel Prizes awarded this year. Each award recognizes groundbreaking contributions by an individual or organization in a specific field.
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The Nobel Prize in Literature will be awarded on Thursday by the Swedish Academy in Stockholm. Last year, Han Kang, known best for her novel “The Vegetarian,” became the first writer from South Korea to receive the award.
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The Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded on Friday by the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo. Last year, the Japanese organization Nihon Hidankyo, a grass-roots movement of atomic bomb survivors, received the award “for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons.”
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Next week, the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences will be awarded on Monday by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm. Last year, Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James Robinson were honored for research into how institutions shape which countries become wealthy and prosperous — and how those structures came to exist in the first place.
All of the prize announcements are streamed live by the Nobel Prize organization.
Ali Watkins covers international news for The Times and is based in Belfast.
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