October 10, 2025
Q&A: UW chemistry professors explain MOFs, the materials behind the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
MOFs are made up of a repeated network of molecular building blocks that form a crystalline structure that has large pores in it. Shown here is a drawing of a MOF where the light gray polyhedra are metal ions, the dark gray spheres are carbon atoms and the red spheres are oxygen atoms.Dianne Xiao/University of Washington
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Oct. 8 awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar M. Yaghi “for the development of metal–organic frameworks,” or MOFs.
These materials are made up of a repeated network of molecular building blocks that form a crystalline structure that has large pores in it. MOFs are incredibly modular, which means they can be used for a seemingly endless variety of applications, including harvesting water from desert air or removing toxic chemicals from a solution.
Both Dianne Xiao, a University of Washington associate professor of chemistry, and Douglas Reed, a UW assistant professor of chemistry, use MOFs in their research at the UW. UW News reached out to them to learn more about the significance of these structures and how researchers use them.
Can you explain what a MOF is?
Dianne XiaoDianne Xiao/University of Washington
Dianne Xiao: MOFs are materials composed of metal ions — we call these the “nodes” — connected by rigid organic bridging groups — we call these the “struts.” Together they make an extended, crystalline porous network.
There are many different analogies that people have used to explain MOFs to a general audience. One common description is a “crystalline sponge,” which highlights how MOFs have very large interior surface areas and void spaces that can be used to bind and store specific molecules, what we call “guests.”
Another phrase people have used is “molecular tinker toys,” which highlights how tunable and modular the synthesis is: You can pair virtually any metal ion on the periodic table with hundreds, if not thousands, of different organic bridging groups, and obtain a MOF with properties tailored to your specific application.
What kind of chemistry do they help facilitate?
Douglas ReedDouglas Reed/University of Washington
Douglas Reed: The modularity of MOFs allows researchers to design materials to soak up a specific guest molecule, and the immensely high surface areas enable MOFs to remove large quantities of these guest molecules very quickly. One example is removing carbon dioxide from industrial waste streams: This application requires a material that can selectively soak up carbon dioxide, but leave behind benign molecules, such as nitrogen and water. MOFs can do this with greater selectivity, higher carbon dioxide removal capacity and lower energy penalties than traditional technologies.
In another example, MOFs with different organic struts and metal nodes can be used to remove forever chemicals, such as PFAS, or toxic chemicals, such as heavy metals, from water.
Other researchers use the high surface area of the pore to more effectively store large quantities of gasses, such as hydrogen, that can be used as clean fuels. People can even place catalytic sites within the pores to perform challenging chemical reactions.
What is the significance of the discovery that was awarded this year?
DX: We already have some porous materials, such as activated carbon, mesoporous silica and zeolites, which play incredibly important roles in industry and in our daily lives. But compared to these traditional porous materials, what makes MOFs distinct and significant is their molecular tunability and structural diversity.
As the Nobel Prize announcement highlighted, since Kitagawa, Robson and Yaghi’s foundational work in the 1990s, tens of thousands of MOFs have been synthesized and discovered. Some of these MOFs have already been commercialized for applications, such as carbon dioxide capture and toxic gas storage. However, regardless of commercialization potential, the field of MOFs has been and will continue to be a very exciting field for basic science, thanks to their tunability!
Can you talk about how you use MOFs in your research at the UW?
Shown here is a MOF (yellow powder) being synthesized in water. Because the pores in the crystalline structure are about the size of only a few molecules, they are not visible to the human eye.Douglas Reed/University of Washington
DX: Porous materials, and MOFs specifically, are central to my group’s research. One area is heterogeneous catalysis, where we take advantage of the tunability of MOFs to create active sites that make it easier for chemical reactions to happen than they would on their own. We’re also very interested in making porous materials that can conduct electricity for applications such as electrochemical carbon dioxide capture and electrocatalysis.
DR: While our research group doesn’t study traditional MOFs, we use MOF-based concepts to make existing materials porous. With this extra space, we can potentially make more stable solar cells by introducing repair molecules. Similarly, we can increase the efficiency of cooling devices by providing better airflow through the material. Many foundational synthetic methods for our current research are based on existing metal–organic frameworks.
For more information, contact Xiao at djxiao@uw.edu and Reed at dreed4@uw.edu.
Tag(s): College of Arts & Sciences • Department of Chemistry • Dianne Xiao • Douglas Reed • Research Makes America