Michigan News
Former U-M researcher shares 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
The 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded in part to Omar M. Yaghi, a University of California, Berkeley, professor who developed some of the foundational work for the research as a faculty member in the University of Michigan Department of Chemistry. He helped build a very stable version of a metal-organic framework molecule, a crystalline molecule with large, open structures that could be integral in solving some of humankind’s greatest challenges, with applications that include separating PFAS from water, breaking down traces of pharmaceuticals in the environment, capturing carbon dioxide or harvesting water from desert air, according to the Nobel release.
The 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to a researcher who conducted the foundational work for his research in part at the University of Michigan.
Omar Yaghi, currently a professor of chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, was awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work developing a new form of molecular architecture called metal-organic frameworks.
Omar Yaghi
MOFs are composed of metal ions linked by long organic (carbon-based) molecules, creating crystals that contain large cavities. MOFs are contributing to solving some of humankind’s greatest challenges, with applications that include separating PFAS from water, breaking down traces of pharmaceuticals in the environment, capturing carbon dioxide, and harvesting water from desert air, according to the Nobel release.
Yaghi was a faculty member of the U-M Department of Chemistry from 1999 to 2006, a period “where he initiated much of the groundbreaking work that led to his award of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry,” said Neil Marsh, U-M professor of chemistry and biological chemistry.
Neil Marsh
“The scientific breakthrough that Yaghi made while at Michigan highlights the excellence of the scientific research being done at the University of Michigan.”
In 1989, Richard Robson, who shared the 2025 Nobel Prize, developed the first MOF material, according to the Nobel release. He quickly recognized the potential of the molecular construction, but it was unstable and collapsed easily.
Together with Susumu Kitagawa, who also shared the 2025 prize, Yaghi developed techniques to stabilize the molecules. Kitagawa showed that gases can flow in and out of the constructions and predicted that MOFs could be made flexible. Yaghi, at Arizona State University and at U-M, created a very stable MOF and showed that it can be modified using rational design, giving it new and desirable properties.
Adam Matzger
Adam Matzger, U-M professor of chemistry and macromolecular science and engineering who studies MOFs, worked closely with Yaghi as a U-M faculty member. With Yaghi and U-M researcher Antek Wong-Foy, Matzger helped characterize the first MOF to exceed the surface area of all existing materials.
“We provided the first measurements quantifying why MOFs were, and still are, the best sorbents to store hydrogen gas,” Matzger said. “The potential to design porous solids with exceptional properties was established before Yaghi, but this potential was not realized due to design limitations and/or a lack of appropriate approaches. It was under Yaghi that this potential was realized through innovative design.”
Richard Robson was inspired by the structure of a diamond, in which every carbon atom is linked to four others in a pyramid-like shape. Rather than carbon, he used copper ions and a molecule with four arms, each with a nitrile at the end. This is a chemical compound that is attracted to copper ions. When the substances were combined, they formed an ordered and very spacious crystal. Image credit: ©Johan Jarnestad/The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
In 1999, Yaghi constructed a very stable material, MOF-5, which has cubic spaces. Just a couple of grams can hold an area as big as a football pitch. Image credit: ©Johan Jarnestad/The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
In the early 2000s, Omar M. Yaghi showed that it is possible to produce entire families of MOF materials. He varied the molecular links, which resulted in materials with different properties. These include 16 variants of MOF-5, with cavities of various sizes. Image credit: ©Johan Jarnestad/The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Part of the work demonstrated the ability of MOFs to host large molecules in a way impossible with zeolites, a porous mineral, or manmade activated carbons, both used in industry as catalysts for filtration and in chemistry to separate mixtures into their individual components.
“One of the defining properties of zeolites and activated carbons is their surface area, which can influence their performance,” Matzger said. “This is one of the places where MOFs excel.”
Since then, chemists have built tens of thousands of different MOFs, including Matzger’s work, which he continues at U-M.
“There are companies commercializing MOFs and some very large demonstration projects using MOFs for carbon dioxide capture. However, the versatility of MOFs has led to an unprecedented flurry of activity in materials, inorganic, organic and physical chemistry,” Matzger said. “It is similar to the graphene revolution, and MOF chemistry is proving to be enduring and bigger than ever. Yaghi’s design teachings have a lot to do with that.”
