University of Melbourne professor Richard Robson wins esteemed award

Robson is affiliated with the University of Melbourne, while Kitagawa, 74, works at Japan’s Kyoto University and Yaghi, 60, works at the University of California at Berkeley.

“These structures, metal-organic frameworks, could be used to collect water from desert air, capture carbon dioxide, store toxic gases or catalyze chemical reactions,” the committee said in a statement.

Working separately but contributing to each other’s discoveries through research dating back to 1989, chemists found ways to make solid metal organic skeletons comparable to the wooden framework of a house.

These structures can absorb and retain gases within these frameworks, with many practical applications today, such as capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or absorbing water from dry desert air.

Nobel Chemistry Committee member Olof Ramström described the trio’s discovery as similar to Hermione Granger’s magical bag in the fictional movie. Harry Potter series: small on the outside but huge on the inside.

The first discovery was made in 1989 by Robson, who found that positively charged copper ions combined to form an ordered crystal filled with holes. Kitagawa and Yaghi improved on his work showing that gases could flow through crystals and that the crystals were extremely stable.

Robson described himself as a classic lonely chemist, “an obsessive individual who neglects other responsibilities”. He said he would prefer a career in mathematics and felt “second class” as a chemist.

He told the Nobel organization that the idea came to him while he was building models of molecules using wooden balls and metal rods. What if he built a structure in which organic molecules bonded to metallic molecules?

Robson then toyed with the idea for 10 years, always thinking, “I really have to do something about this.”

Kitagawa spoke to the committee and the press by phone on Wednesday after his win was announced.

“I am very honored and pleased to have my long-standing research recognized,” he said.

Between 1901 and 2024, 116 chemistry prizes were awarded to 195 people.

The 2024 prize was awarded to David Baker, a biochemist at the University of Washington in Seattle, and Demis Hassabis and John Jumper, computer scientists at Google DeepMind, a British-American artificial intelligence research laboratory based in London.

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The three were rewarded for discovering powerful techniques for decoding and even designing new proteins, the building blocks of life. Their work used advanced technologies, including artificial intelligence, and has the potential to change the way new drugs and other materials are made.

The first Nobel Prize for 2025 was announced on Monday. The medicine award goes to Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell, and Dr. for their discoveries regarding peripheral immune tolerance. It was given to Shimon Sakaguchi.

Tuesday’s physics prize was awarded to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis for their research into the strange world of subatomic quantum tunneling that advances the power of everyday digital communications and computing.

This year’s Nobel announcements continue with the literature prize being awarded on Thursday. The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Friday, and the economics prize will be announced next Monday.

The award ceremony will be held on December 10, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, the founder of the awards. Nobel was a wealthy Swedish industrialist and inventor of dynamite. He died in 1896.

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