The Nobel Prize in Chemistry rewards the discovery of molecules capable of trapping gases or liquids.

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry perfectly illustrates the idea that this discipline can sometimes be like a simple Lego game. The three laureates honored on Wednesday, October 8 , the Englishman Richard Robson (University of Melbourne), 88 years old, the Japanese Susumu Kitagawa (University of Kyoto), 74 years old, and the Jordanian Omar M. Yaghi (University of California, Berkeley), 60 years old, demonstrated this separately by manufacturing a new family of molecules of incredible diversity and numerous applications. Their metal-organic frameworks, or MOFs (in English, metal-organic framework ), as Omar M. Yaghi has named them, or porous coordination polymers, as Susumu Kitagawa prefers to call them, are extremely porous molecules that contain tiny cavities capable of trapping gases or liquids and releasing them when necessary.

One gram of these crystals, through all these holes, actually represents the equivalent of a football field in surface area. This means absorption capacities are superior to sponges or other common materials, such as activated carbon or zeolites. The advantage is that this can trap and store various gases, such as hydrogen or methane, or help separate air constituents, such as climate-damaging _CO2 , or rid water of pollutants, making it more drinkable. Recently, several laboratories have even designed MOFs that trap eternal pollutants such as PFAS.

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