Melbourne Chemistry Professor Awarded Nobel Prize
University of Melbourne Professor Richard Robson officially received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in December 2025 from King Carl Gustaf XVI in Stockholm. At age 88, Robson was recognized alongside Professors Susumu Kitagawa and Omar M. Yaghi for pioneering metal-organic frameworks.
Metal-organic frameworks are a new class of solids being developed into gas and energy storage devices, catalytic reactors, and other potentially revolutionary materials.
The journey to the Nobel Prize started with a request to build large wooden ball-and-rod models of crystalline structures for giving first-year chemistry lectures in 1974.
Professor Robson proposed replacing the balls with metal centres or multi-connected molecular units, and the rods with molecular bridges. When he took his idea to the laboratory more than a decade later to test, he created a crystal with diamond-like connectivity, but more than half of its content was liquid.
By replacing solid chemical bonds with molecular rods, Prof. Robson introduced intentional space into crystalline structures. This breakthrough allows substances to flow through and transform within a framework, offering revolutionary potential for gas and energy storage, for catalytic reactors, and for sustainability and the energy transition.
Despite retiring decades ago, Prof. Robson’s commitment to education remains so strong that he returned to teaching his first-year Bachelor of Science students just hours after the initial prize announcement!
University leaders and colleagues lauded Robson for his curiosity-driven research and his 36-year history of mentorship. He shared the ceremony with family, former students, and peers who traveled globally to witness the recognition of his seminal work.
Read the original story here.
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