Key Points

The constructions called metal-organic frameworks were used to harvest water from desert air, capture carbon dioxide, store toxic gases, or catalyse chemical reactions.

Kitagawa is a professor at Kyoto University in Japan, while Robson is a professor at the University of Melbourne, Australia, and Yaghi is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, in the US.

Speaking at the Nobel press conference, Kitagawa said he was deeply honoured by the award.

"My dream is to capture air and separate air to -- for instance, in CO2 or oxygen or water or something -- and convert this to useful materials using renewable energy," said the 74-year-old Japanese professor.

"I tell my students that challenge is very important in chemistry, in science," Kitagawa added.

Yaghi is Jordanian-American, born to Palestinian refugees in Jordan, where his family shared a one-room home with the cattle the family was raising.

"It's quite a journey and science allows you to do it," he said in an interview published on the Nobel website, adding that his parents could barely read or write. "Science is the greatest equalising force in the world," he said.

Yaghi, who is 60 years old, said he was astonished and delighted to win the award.

He was just 10 years old when he found a book on molecules in the library, and it was the beginning of a lifelong love of chemistry.

"Since then, I've chosen to investigate problems based on the beauty of molecules."

"I set out to build beautiful things and solve intellectual problems. The deeper you dig, the more beautifully you find things are constructed," he told the Nobel press.

The research began in 1989 with Robson, a chemist born in Britain who moved to Australia in his late 20s.

The now 88-year-old scientist was inspired by the structure of diamonds. He combined copper ions with a four-armed molecule to make pyramid-shaped molecules, which bonded together to form crystals strewn with cavities.

Robson realised the potential for the structures, but they were unstable and tended to fall apart.

The research, further carried out by Kitagawa and Yaghi, turned metal-organic frameworks into valuable materials.

"Metal-organic frameworks have enormous potential, bringing previously unforeseen opportunities for custom-made materials with new functions," said Heiner Linke, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry.

Following the laureates' groundbreaking discoveries, chemists have built tens of thousands of different MOFs.

Some of these may contribute 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, or harvesting water from desert air.

- IANS