This year’s Nobel Peace Prize captured more headlines than usual – largely because of President Donald Trump’s high-profile campaigning to secure the award. Ultimately, the prize was awarded to María Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader, for her “tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela”. While Trump’s very public ambitions to win the Peace Prize dominated media coverage, the winners of one of the other Nobel Prize categories caught my attention. Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson, and Omar M. Yaghi received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the development of a new type of molecular architecture: metal-organic frameworks (MOFs).
These molecular constructions have large cavities through which gases and other chemicals can flow. By varying the building blocks used in the MOFs, chemists can design them to capture and store specific substances, and MOFs can also drive chemical reactions or conduct electricity.
The origins of MOFs started in 1989, when Richard Robson initially tested utilising the inherent properties of atoms in a new way. He combined positively charged copper ions with a four-armed molecule, and this had a chemical group that was attracted to copper ions at the end of each arm. When combined, they bonded to form a spacious crystal that was like a diamond with innumerable cavities. However, this constriction was unstable and collapsed easily. Susumu Kitagawa and Omar Yaghi then made a series of revolutionary discoveries. Kitagawa showed that gases can flow in and out of the constructions and predicted that MOFs could be made flexible. Yaghi then created a very stable MOF and showed that it can be modified using rational design, giving it new and desirable properties.
Since these discoveries, chemists have built tens of thousands of different MOFs which can be used in lots of different applications, e.g. to harvest water from desert air, separate PFAS from water, and break down traces of pharmaceuticals in the environment. MOFs can also be used to catalyse chemical reactions, capture carbon dioxide, and store hydrogen and toxic gases.
Given this rapid revolution, it is no surprise that MOFs are now making their way into industrial decarbonisation strategies. Indeed, regular readers of Hydrocarbon Engineering may recall that our November 2025 issue featured an article exploring how one MOF in particular – TAMOF-1 – is emerging as a practical, scalable solution for CO2 capture in real-world downstream applications.1 You can read the article now by logging into your account over at our website or by signing up to a free subscription to the magazine (www.hydrocarbonengineering.com/magazine).
As the momentum behind MOF research continues to build, these materials are poised to play an increasingly important role in shaping the industry’s path toward lower emissions and greater efficiency. Future editions of Hydrocarbon Engineering are sure to feature even more insights into the growing potential of MOFs. In the meantime, this issue kicks off with an article from Euro Petroleum Consultants (EPC) looking at how CCUS is emerging as one of the defining technologies of the energy transition.
We’d like to thank all our readers and advertisers for their continued support throughout 2025, and wish you all a joyful and restful holiday season.
- GALÁN-MASCARÓS, J. R., GIANCOLA, S., CAPELO-AVILÉS, S., and VILA-FONTES, M., ‘High performing carbon capture by TAMOF-1’, Hydrocarbon Engineering, (November 2025), pp. 40 - 44.
