Nobel Prize in chemistry goes to discovery that could trap C02 and bring water to deserts

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Three scientists won the Nobel Prize in chemistry Wednesday for their development of new molecular structures that can trap vast quantities of gas inside, laying the groundwork to potentially suck greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere or harvest moisture from desert environments.

The chairperson of the committee that made the award compared the structures called metal-organic frameworks to the seemingly bottomless magical handbag carried by Hermione Granger in the “Harry Potter” series. Another example might be Mary Poppins’ enchanted carpet bag. These containers look small from the outside but are able to hold surprisingly large quantities within.

The committee said Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar M. Yaghi were honored for “groundbreaking discoveries" that “may contribute to solving some of humankind’s greatest challenges,” from pollution to water scarcity.

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

The chemists worked separately but added to each other’s breakthroughs over decades, beginning with Robson's work in the 1980s.

The scientists were able to devise stable atomic structures that preserved holes of specific sizes that allowed gas or liquid to flow in and out. The holes can be customized to match the size of specific molecules that scientists or engineers want to hold in place, such as water, carbon dioxide or methane.

“That level of control is quite rare in chemistry,” said Kim Jelfs, a computational chemist at Imperial College London. “It’s really efficient for storing gases.”

A relatively small amount of the structure — which combines metal nodes and organic rods, somewhat like the interchangeable building pieces in Tinker Toys — creates many organized holes and a huge amount of surface area inside.

For instance, Jelfs said, a few grams of molecular organic framework may have as much surface area as a soccer field, all of which can be used to lock gas molecules in place.

“If you can store toxic gases,” said American Chemical Society President Dorothy Phillips, “it can help address global challenges.”

Today researchers around the world are exploring possibilities that include using the frameworks to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and pollution from industrial sites. Another possibility is to use them to harvest moisture from desert air, perhaps to one day provide clean drinking water in arid environments.

Scientists are also investigating using the structures for targeted drug delivery. The idea is to load them with medicine that may be slowly released inside the body.

“It could be a better way to deliver low doses continually,” as with cancer drugs, said David Pugh, a chemist at King's College London.

The research "could be really, really valuable" in many industries, he said. But “there are still challenges when you translate that from the lab to the real world.” For example, many of the structures store the most gas and liquid in very low-temperature, high-pressure environments, he said.

Today, metal-organic frameworks are already being used in some surprising ways, including as part of packing material to keep fruit fresh over long shipping routes, by gradually releasing chemicals that slow down the ripening process.

Yaghi learned that he had won while traveling from San Francisco to Brussels. As he grabbed his luggage and prepared to change flights in Frankfurt, his phone started buzzing with a call from Sweden.

“You cannot prepare for a moment like that," he said at a news conference. ”The feeling is indescribable, but it's absolutely thrilling."

When his phone rang, Kitagawa was at first skeptical. He said he answered “rather bluntly," thinking it must be a telemarketing call.

“It was such a big prize so I thought, ‘Is it really true?’” he recalled during a news conference at Kyoto University. “When one of the experts came on the phone and congratulated me, I finally thought it was real and felt relaxed.”

Kitagawa said the research has been widely recognized in the world of chemistry, but “it is very difficult to gain understanding by the ordinary people, and I’m delighted to be recognized.”

The 88-year-old Robson, in a phone call with The Associated Press from his home in Melbourne, Australia, said he was “very pleased of course and a bit stunned as well.”

“This is a major thing that happens late in life when I’m not really in a condition to withstand it all,” he said. “But here we are.”

The 2024 chemistry prize was awarded to David Baker, a biochemist at the University of Washington in Seattle, and to Demis Hassabis and John Jumper, computer scientists at Google DeepMind, a British-American artificial intelligence research laboratory based in London.

The three were awarded for discovering powerful techniques to decode and even design novel proteins, the building blocks of life. Their work used advanced technologies, including artificial intelligence, and held the potential to transform how new drugs and other materials are made.

The first Nobel of 2025 was announced Monday. The prize in medicine went to Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Dr. Shimon Sakaguchi for their discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance.

Tuesday's physics prize went to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis for their research on the weird world of subatomic quantum tunneling that advances the power of everyday digital communications and computing.

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

Dazio reported from Berlin, and Larson reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo and Rod McGuirk in Melbourne, Australia, contributed to this report.

AP Nobel Prizes: https://apnews.com/hub/nobel-prizes

Kyoto University professor Susumu Kitagawa speaks during a news conference at the university in Kyoto, near Osaka, Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2025, after he won the Nobel Prize in chemistry. (Ren Onuma/Kyodo News via AP)

From left, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry Heiner Linke, Secretary General of the Swedish Academy of Sciences Hans Ellegren, and Member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry Olof Ramstrom pose after announcing Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar Yaghi as the recipients the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, at the Nobel Assembly of the Karolinska Institutet, in Stockholm, Sweden, Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2025. (Fredrik Sandberg/TT News Agency via AP)

Kyoto University professor Susumu Kitagawa speaks during a news conference in Kyoto, near Osaka, western Japan, Sept. 26, 2024. (Kyodo News via AP)

Chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry Heiner Linke makes a demonstration, next to Secretary General of the Swedish Academy of Sciences Hans Ellegren, and Member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry Olof Ramstrom, right, after they announce Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar Yaghi, on screen behind, as the recipients the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, at the Nobel Assembly of the Karolinska Institutet, in Stockholm, Sweden, Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2025. (Fredrik Sandberg/TT News Agency via AP)

Chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry Heiner Linke makes a demonstration, next to Secretary General of the Swedish Academy of Sciences Hans Ellegren, and Member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry Olof Ramstrom, right, after they announce Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar Yaghi, on screen behind, as the recipients the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, at the Nobel Assembly of the Karolinska Institutet, in Stockholm, Sweden, Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2025. (Fredrik Sandberg/TT News Agency via AP)

Susumu Kitagawa, a Kyoto University professor, is pictured in Kyoto, western Japan, on Sept. 17, 2018. (Ryosuke Ozawa/Kyodo News via AP)

FILE - A visitor reads a book written by South Korean author Han Kang, this year's winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, at a special section of a bookstore in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man, File)

TSAKANE, South Africa (AP) — Gladys Khoza had missed being able to see her family. Not because they couldn't visit, but because the 84-year-old had vision problems.

Now that has changed. Khoza is one of 133 people whose sight was restored during a “marathon” of free cataract surgeries conducted by doctors in South Africa at two hospitals over two weekends last month.

“Wow!” a delighted Khoza whispered as a nurse peeled back a bandage a day after her operation, and the world came back into view.

“Can you see me?” the nurse asked. “Very well,” Khoza replied, a big grin on her face.

Patients in South Africa's public health service can be on waiting lists for years for the simple 15-20-minute cataract operation. Officials said some of those who were selected from hospital waiting lists for the surgeries had been waiting since 2019 to see properly again.

Cataracts are a common, often age-related condition in which the eye's lens becomes clouded, and they are the leading cause of curable blindness. The surgeries insert a new artificial lens.

For Khoza, who said she couldn't see anything out of one eye because of a cataract and had long had issues with the other, the simple surgery equates to a major boost for her quality of life.

“I just wanted to be able to see,” she said. Now, after nearly a year of waiting, some of her favorite things — seeing loved ones, reading her Bible and watching late-night soap operas — are all possible again.

Dr. Tebogo Fakude, one of the doctors who volunteered to perform the operations at two regional hospitals near Johannesburg, said his mother was blind and that having sight restored is “beautiful.”

"It's beautiful because it alleviates depression,” Fakude said adding that the sense of being a burden was also eased.

Globally, more than 2 billion people suffer from some kind of vision impairment, according to the World Health Organization. For half of them, the problem could have been prevented, or they are still waiting for treatment.

Nearly 100 million people are affected by cataracts, and half of them still need access to surgery, according to the WHO. In Africa, that figure rises to 75% of people without surgery, according to a study published in March by the Lancet medical journal.

Surgery backlogs are a significant problem in South Africa, where government-run hospitals serve more than three-quarters of the population of 62 million people. Limited resources mean emergency procedures and more serious operations are prioritized over elective surgery.

The Health Department-led surgical marathons were first staged on Mandela Day in 2023 to commemorate the legacy of the country’s first Black president, Nelson Mandela. They have developed into a public-private partnership that takes place several times a year to increase access to care.

The ministry has vowed to use surgical marathons as a means of eliminating backlogs. Previous ones have addressed prostate, cleft palate and stomach issues.

Cataracts became the latest focus. Around 300,000 new cases are diagnosed every year in South Africa, Fakude said.

Health groups say South Africa faces a backlog of over 240,000 people waiting for cataract operations. Over 35,000 people in the most populous province of Gauteng — where the surgery marathon was performed — have cataract-related blindness.

WHO says eye cataract operations are “one of the most cost-effective medical procedures,” and a powerful tool to restore someone's independence, dignity and opportunities.

During the three-day surgery marathon at Pholosong Regional Hospital, a new patient was brought into the operating theater about every 30 minutes. Soothing gospel music played on speakers to keep up doctors' morale.

Looking through a microscope, the eye specialists made tiny incisions for each operation, removed the cloudy lens and replaced it with an artificial one. At one point, two surgeons worked concurrently on separate patients to quicken the pace. They completed 60 surgeries on the last weekend of the marathon.

Molefe Mokoena, 72, said he was looking forward to regaining his independence after suffering from a cataract for four years.

"I want to see my great-grandchildren,” he said. “I want to drive my car, and I'm happy about this.”

For more on Africa and development: https://apnews.com/hub/africa-pulse

The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Gladys Khoza undergoes a post-operative eye test after cataract surgery, in Tsakane, South Africa, Saturday, March 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Kayleen Morgan)

A monitor displays a live cataract surgery during a surgical marathon, in Tsakane, South Africa, Saturday, March 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Kayleen Morgan)

Ophthalmologists operate on two patients during a marathon cataract event, in Tsakane, South Africa, Saturday, March 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Kayleen Morgan)

Gladys Khoza adjusts an eye testing device during an eye surgery marathon, in Tsakane, South Africa, Saturday, March 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Kayleen Morgan)

An ophthalmologist performs cataract surgery while an assistant hands him surgical instruments during a marathon event, in Tsakane, South Africa, Saturday, March 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Kayleen Morgan)