Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar M. Yaghi share the Nobel Prize in chemistry for their work in the development of metal–organic frameworks that dates back to 1989.

Hans Ellegren, secretary-general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, announced the chemistry prize in Stockholm on Wednesday.

It was the third prize announced this week.

The Nobel committee said that the three laureates “have created molecular constructions with large spaces through which gases and other chemicals can flow.”

“These constructions, metal-organic frameworks, can be used to harvest water from desert air, capture carbon dioxide, store toxic gases or catalyse chemical reactions,” the Nobel Committee said in a statement.

Robson, 88, is affiliated with the University of Melbourne in Australia, Kitagawa, 74, with Japan’s Kyoto University and Yaghi, 60, with the University of California, Berkeley.

The trio’s research dates back to 1989.

“Metal-organic frameworks have enormous potential, bringing previously unforeseen opportunities for custom-made materials with new functions,” Heiner Linke, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, said in a news release.

There have been 116 chemistry prizes given to 195 individuals between 1901 and 2024.

This year's Nobel announcements continue with the literature prize Thursday. The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced Friday and the economics prize next Monday.

The award ceremony will be held Dec. 10, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, who founded the prizes. Nobel was a wealthy Swedish industrialist and the inventor of dynamite. He died in 1896.