Nobel Prize in Chemistry goes to the Humboldtians Susumu Kitagawa and Omar M. Yaghi

The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation congratulates its award winners Susumu Kitagawa and Omar M. Yaghi on winning the Nobel Prize in Chemistry which they will receive together with Richard Robson. The three researchers are being jointly recognised for their development of metal-organic frameworks (MOF).

The worldwide network of individuals who have been sponsored by the Humboldt Foundation now includes 63 Nobel Prize laureates.

“We heartily congratulate Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar M. Yaghi. The award for their groundbreaking work is highly deserved. We are particularly delighted that two of them – the Humboldtians Susumu Kitagawa and Omar M. Yaghi – have close ties with the Humboldt Foundation and Germany”, said the President of the Humboldt Foundation Robert Schlögl. “I am also pleased about the attention that is being directed to research in general as a result of the awarding of the Nobel Prize. It is clear from this that research opens up manifold important perspectives for our future. In addition to scientific curiosity, this work requires perseverance until successes emerge or concrete applications are developed from a discovery.”

The trailblazing research conducted by the Japanese chemist Susumu Kitagawa focuses on the synthesis and properties of porous coordination polymers and metal-organic frameworks. Kitagawa showed that gases can flow in and out of the constructions and predicted that MOFs could be made flexible. Kitagawa previously received a Humboldt Research Award in 2008. With the help of this award, he undertook numerous research stays in Germany between 2008 and 2018, working with, among others, Christof Wöll, then Professor for Physical Chemistry at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum and, until 2025, head of the Institute of Functional Interfaces (Institut für Funktionelle Grenzflächen - IFG) at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), and Roland Fischer who is Chair of Inorganic and Metal-Organic Chemistry at the Technical University of Munich (TUM).

The American chemist Omar M. Yaghi is the world’s leading expert in the field of ultra porous materials consisting of metal ions and organic frameworks (MOFs). His revolutionary discoveries relating to the use of MOFs as storage materials enable, among other things, the harvesting of water from desert air. Yaghi, who is a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, USA, was awarded the Humboldt Research Award in 2022 for his outstanding contributions to science. He used the award to conduct research on new concepts for sustainable chemical materials with his host Matthias Drieß at TU Berlin.

Every year, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation enables more than 2,000 researchers from all over the world to spend time conducting research in Germany. The Foundation maintains an interdisciplinary network of well over 30,000 Humboldtians in more than 140 countries around the world – including 63 Nobel Prize winners.