A life in context
The person behind the prize
Kitagawa earned his doctorate at Kyoto University and became a leader in the chemistry of porous coordination materials. He investigated structures built from metal centres and organic molecules. His research explored how a solid could admit guest molecules while changing its own shape.
The contribution
He demonstrated that gases could move in and out of metal–organic frameworks and developed the idea of flexible porous structures. The framework could behave as a responsive host, not just a rigid container.
The idea in plain language
A metal–organic framework, or MOF, is an extended structure made by linking metal centres with carbon-containing molecules. The result can contain many tiny pores: an enormous internal surface tucked inside a small amount of solid.
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