Nobel winning Aussie professor had big chemistry ideas
A humble Australian professor has won science’s most prestigious prize for doing what he loves, after decades of pondering “great chemistry ideas”.
Richard Robson of the University of Melbourne was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, alongside Japan’s Susumu Kitagawa and American-Jordanian Omar Yaghi, for his work in developing a new form of molecular architecture.
Three award winners created molecular structures with large gaps through which gases and other chemicals can flow.
The technology could be used to collect water from desert air, capture carbon dioxide or store toxic gases.
The Nobel Prize committee noted that materials have such a large surface area that, for example, a porous material roughly the size of a sugar cube could have the surface area of a large football field.
The trio of chemists worked separately but contributed to each other’s discoveries that had begun with Professor Robson.
The 88-year-old artist produced the first metal-organic frames in the early 1990s and continued to explore different forms in the following years.
He has worked as a lecturer and researcher at the University of Melbourne since 1966.
University Vice-Chancellor Emma Johnston congratulated Prof Robson on receiving the highest possible recognition for his achievements.
“This is the kind of blue-sky research that not many people have the opportunity to explore, and even fewer are making the kind of breakthroughs that Professor Robson has achieved,” Prof Johnston said.
“Australia needs to recognize that this long-term basic research is what allows us to translate this research into products such as the ability to store and transfer hydrogen safely.”
Vice-Chancellor Mark Cassidy hopes the award will inspire a wave of research to advance metal-organic frameworks into products vital to Australia’s move towards renewable energy solutions.
“Professor Robson is a humble man who achieved this honor simply by doing what he loved, going to the laboratory every day, talking to students, thinking up big chemistry ideas and experimenting for decades,” Prof Cassidy said.
Prof Robson told the Associated Press he was “of course delighted and a bit stunned”.
“This is a big thing that happens later in my life, when I’m not really in a position to take it all,” he said.
“But here we are.”
The University of Melbourne has a history of Nobel winners, including Elizabeth Blackburn, recognized for her work in physiology or medicine in 2009, Sir James Mirrlees, recognized for his research in economic sciences in 1996, and immunologist Peter Doherty, also recognized in 1996.
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