Photo: 文部科学省 — Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 4.0
Susumu Kitagawa
born 1951 · Japan · Born 1940 or later
Nobel Chemistry 2025
Showed that gases can flow in and out of porous coordination polymers and predicted that such frameworks could be made flexible.
Nobel-winning work
Kitagawa demonstrated that porous coordination polymers can reversibly adsorb gases such as , and , proving these frameworks are genuinely porous materials. He also predicted and realised flexible frameworks that open and close their pores in response to guests, a property now exploited for gas separation, storage and sensing.