The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2025 has been awarded to Professors Kitagawa, Robson, and Yaghi for their work in metal organic frameworks (MOFs). MOFs are nanoporous materials that can be used to catalyze chemical reactions, absorb carbon dioxide, and remove pollutants from water, among other impactful applications.
Hylleraas, and previously the CTCC, both Research Centers of Excellence supported by the Research Council of Norway, have done research on the chemical and physical properties of MOFs[1-15]. In total, 15 publications collecting 700+ citations. A significant part of these studies were related to our collaborations with the Catalysis Group in the UiO Department of Chemistry, which, in 2008, reported one of the most stable and widely used MOFs, the UiO-66 and UiO-67[16], in a work led by Karl Peter Lillerud and contributed by Unni Olsbye. The UiO-67 was explicitly referred to in the official press release made by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, after announcing the Prize on October 8, 2025, as shown in the illustration above.
The work done in Hylleraas includes water adsorption simulations of UiO-66 with machine learning interatomic potentials[1], the modelling of the structure and reactivity of copper MOFs[2,3,5] and platinum nanoparticles embedded into the UiO-67 MOF[4,7,12,13], the prediction of H2 and CO2 adsorption capacities[8,9], and TD-DFT calculations of UV-Vis spectra for the understanding and design of photoactive linkers in UiO MOFs[14].
One of the Nobel Laureates, Professor Susumu Kitagawa, from the Kyoto University in Japan, visited the Hylleraas Center during the Norway-Japan Seminars of 2019 and 2022 organized by Michiko Atsumi.
REFERENCES
[1] Cezar, H. M.; Bodenstein, T.; Sveinsson, H. A.; Ledum, M.; Reine, S.; Bore, S. L. Learning atomic forces from uncertainty-calibrated adversarial attacks. npj Comput. Mater. 2025, 11, 200.
[2] Centrella, B. et al. Harnessing Oxidation-State Control In Cu-Based Mixed-Linker UiO-67 Towards Selective Catalysis For Oxygenation Reactions. ChemSusChem 2025, 18, e202500149.
[3] Garetto, B.; Cao, N.; Finelli, V.; Aunan, E.; Signorile, M.; Olsbye, U.; Bordiga, S.;
Nova, A.; Borfecchia, E. Pinpointing Cu-Coordination Motifs in Bio-Inspired MOFs by
Combining DFT-Assisted XAS Analysis and Multivariate Curve Resolution. J. Phys.
Chem. C 2025, 129, 3570–3582.
[4] Sannes, D. K.; Pulumati, S. H.; Skulason, E.; Nova, A.; Olsbye, U. CO2 hydrogenation to methanol over Pt functionalized Hf-UiO-67 versus Zr-UiO-67. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. A-Math. Phys. Eng. Sci. 2024, 382, 20230269.
[5] Aunan, E.; Finelli, V.; Prodinger, S.; Cao, N.; Garetto, B.; Deplano, G.; Njoroge, P. N.; Signorile, M.; Borfecchia, E.; Lillerud, K. P.; Nova, A.; Bordiga, S.; Olsbye, U. Partial oxidation of cyclohexene over histidine-modified Cu-UiO-66 under aerobic conditions. J. Catal. 2024, 438, 115722.
[6] Gerz, I.; Aunan, E. S.; Finelli, V.; Abu Rasheed, M.; Deplano, G.; Cortez, S.
P. R.; Schmidtke, I. L.; Wragg, D. S.; Signorile, M.; Hylland, K. T.; Borfecchia, E.;
Lillerud, K. P.; Bordiga, S.; Olsbye, U.; Amedjkouh, M. Enabling a bioinspired N,N,N-
copper coordination motif through spatial control in UiO-67: synthesis and reactivity.
Dalton Trans. 2024, 53, 8141–8153.
[7] Pulumati, S. H.; Sannes, D. K.; Jabbour, C. R.; Mandemaker, L. D. B.; Weckhuy-
sen, B. M.; Olsbye, U.; Nova, A.; Skulason, E. Mechanistic Insights in the Catalytic
Hydrogenation of CO2 over Pt Nanoparticles in UiO-67 Metal-Organic Frameworks.
ACS Catal. 2023, 14, 382–394.
[8] Kuriakose, N.; Morán-González, L.; Kneiding, H.; Betten, J. E.; Balcells, D. Machine Learning the Hydrogen Adsorption Capacity of Metal Organic Frameworks. ChemRxiv, 2025, DOI: 10.26434/chemrxiv-2025-mccz2.
[9] Atsumi, M.; Zheng, J.-J.; Tellgren, E.; Sakaki, S.; Helgaker, T. Carbon dioxide ad-
sorption to UiO-66: theoretical analysis of binding energy and NMR properties. Phys.
Chem. Chem. Phys. 2023, 25, 28770–28783.
[10] Sannes, D. K.; Oien-Odegaard, S.; Aunan, E.; Nova, A.; Olsbye, U. Quantification of Linker Defects in UiO-Type Metal-Organic Frameworks. Chem. Mat. 2023, 35, 3793–3800.
[11] Santos, D. E. S.; Coutinho, K.; Soares, T. A. Surface Assessment via Grid Evaluation (SuAVE) for Every Surface Curvature and Cavity Shape. J. Chem Inf. Model. 2022, 62, 4690–4701.
[12] Gutterod, E. S.; Pulumati, S. H.; Kaur, G.; Lazzarini, A.; Solemsli, B. G.; Gun-
naes, A. E.; Ahoba-Sam, C.; Kalyva, M. E.; Sannes, J. A.; Svelle, S.; Skulason, E.;
Nova, A.; Olsbye, U. Influence of Defects and H2O on the Hydrogenation of CO2 to
Methanol over Pt Nanoparticles in UiO-67 Metal-Organic Framework. J. Am. Chem.
Soc. 2020, 142, 17105–17118.
[13] Gutterod, E. S.; Lazzarini, A.; Fjermestad, T.; Kaur, G.; Manzoli, M.; Bordiga, S.;
Svelle, S.; Lillerud, K. P.; Skulason, E.; Oien-Odegaard, S.; Nova, A.; Olsbye, U. Hy-
drogenation of CO2 to Methanol by Pt Nanoparticles Encapsulated in UiO-67: De-
ciphering the Role of the Metal-Organic Framework. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2020, 142,
999–1009.
[14] Thoresen, E. M.; Balcells, D.; Oien-Odegaard, S.; Hylland, K. T.; Tilset, M.; Amedjkouh, M. Cyclometalated ruthenium complexes with carboxylated ligands from a combined experimental/computational perspective. Dalton Trans. 2018, 47, 2589–2601.
[15] Kandiah, M.; Usseglio, S.; Svelle, S.; Olsbye, U.; Lillerud, K. P.; Tilset, M. Post-
synthetic modification of the metal-organic framework compound UiO-66. J. Mater.
Chem. 2010, 20, 9848–9851.
[16] Cavka, J. H.; Jakobsen, S.; Olsbye, U.; Guillou, N.; Lamberti, C.; Bordiga, S.;
Lillerud, K. P. A new zirconium inorganic building brick forming metal organic frame-
works with exceptional stability. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2008, 130, 13850–13851.