The Nobel Committee in Stockholm announced today, Wednesday, that Jordanian scientist Omar Yaghi, and two others have won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2025.
The committee revealed the winners as Susumu Kitagawa from Japan, Richard Robson from Britain, and Omar Yaghi from Jordan, for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2025, in recognition of their development of what is known as "Metal-Organic Frameworks."
The committee stated that the three researchers have provided chemists "new opportunities to solve some of the challenges facing this field," noting that these structures "offer unprecedented possibilities for designing materials with new functions."
The chairman of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, Heiner Linke, explained that these structures provide large internal spaces through which gases and chemicals can pass, likening their function to "rooms in a hotel" where molecules can freely enter and exit.
Linke added that these materials are capable of performing diverse functions, from extracting water from desert air to capturing carbon dioxide andstoring toxic gases andcatalyzing chemical reactions.
Linke compared their unique properties to Hermione Granger’s bag in the "Harry Potter" series, which appears small on the outside but can hold a tremendous amount of contents inside, explaining that "these materials can store large amounts of gas in a very small volume."
The monetary value of the prize is 11 million Swedish kronor (approximately 730,000 Jordanian dinars).
