The story so far: For centuries, chemistry’s main terrain was to craft ever more complex molecules but it soon became clear to scientists that they were all confined to their own boundaries. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2025 honours three scientists who expanded that horizon into a whole new dimension. Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar Yaghi have been feted for developing metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), little molecular scaffolds with vast internal spaces where other atoms and molecules can move, react or stay.

What is a MOF?

MOFs are crystalline structures in which metal ions serve as nodes and organic molecules as connectors. The resulting structure can have enormous internal surface areas — thousands of square metres per gram — and their pores can be customised to attract o

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