While bestowing the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry last week, the winners were praised for their innovation, which one Nobel committee member compared to Hermione’s handbag from the Harry Potter novels.

The honored scientists developed materials that are full of microscopic holes that can trap and store chemicals.

The surface area properties are “unheard of”, according a Reuters report about the award presentation in Stockholm on Wednesday: “a porous material roughly the size of a sugar cube could contain as much surface area as a football pitch”.

“A small amount of such material can be almost like Hermione’s handbag in Harry Potter,” said Heiner Linke, the Chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry at the announcement. “It can store huge amounts of gas in a tiny volume.”

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