Speakers: Phil Sowders Alan Schmidt
The Nobel Pirze in Physics was awarded to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret, and John M. Martinis for the discovery of macroscopic quantam mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson, and Omar M. Yaghi “for the development of metal-organic frameworks". Metal–organic frameworks are crystalline materials made from metal nodes connected by organic linkers, forming structures with extremely high porosity. The Nobel Committee highlighted how MOFs create “molecular constructions with large spaces through which gases and other chemicals can flow,” enabling breakthroughs in environmental, industrial, and energy applications.
Dr. Alan Schmidt is a retired Chemical Engineer with a doctorate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has industrial experience in polymerization research and development and environmental work at the Indiana Department of Environmental Management.
Philip Sowders has been a chemist, psychologist, senior behavioral health consultant, director of Autism Services, Founder/Partner, clinical director Franklin Family Services, Psychologist. He is a member of the International Centre for Leadership Results, Open Minds Physics Review, Phi Kappa Sigma Fraternity.
Program: 2025 Nobel Prizes in Physics and Chemistry
Speakers: Phil Sowders, PhD, psychologist; Alan Schmidt, PhD, chemical engineer (retired); both are Scientech members
Introduction By: Alan Schmidt introduced Phil Sowder, and Phil introduced Alan
Attendance: NESC:96; Zoom:26
Guests: Margie Sharples, Jack Murphy, Ann Manders, Jeff Magner, Gordon Mendenhall
Scribe: Alan Schmidt and Phil Sowders
Editor: Bill Elliott
Talk’s Zoom recording found at: https://www.scientechclubvideos.org/zoom/10262026.mp4
Alan Schmidt, PhD. is a retired chemical engineer with a doctorate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has industrial experience in polymerization research and development and environmental work at the Indiana Department of Environmental Management.
Philip Sowders, PhD. has been a physicist, psychologist, senior behavioral health consultant, director of Autism Services, Founder/Partner and clinical director at Franklin Family Services.
2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry:
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson, and Omar M. Yaghi for the development of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). Metal–organic frameworks are crystalline materials made from metal nodes connected by organic linkers, forming structures with extremely high porosity.
Dr. Richard Robson was inspired by the pyramid structure of diamond to make a porous structure unit with four copper ions, four nitriles, and a four-member organic ligand. The Metal Organic Frameworks, MOFs, have metal nodes with copper, zinc, cobalt, nickel, or zirconium with various lengths of organic ligands to define pore geometry, size, and porosity. MOFs have extraordinary porosity and surface area surpassing zeolites, activated carbon, and all classical porous materials. Dr. Robson is at the University of Melbourne, Australia. He made the first metal-organic framework crystal in 1989, pioneering the rational design of porous molecular architecture. He answered the question of could the inherent directionality of atomic bonds be exploited to construct entirely new types of molecular frameworks – not from individual atoms, but from pre-built molecular components. By swapping organic linkers or metals, the ordered and very spacious MOF crystals can have customized pore size, shape, chemical affinity, and function enabling rational synthesis of materials for specific applications.
The first structures of Dr. Susumu Kitragawa at Kyoto University, Japan were unstable with no immediate application. He made the first stable 3-dimensional gas-absorbing MOF in 1997. Dr. Kitragawa introduced the concept of flexible and breathing MOFs. The framework expands on gas absorption and contracts on desorption. Methane, nitrogen, and oxygen can be adsorbed and released repeatedly without any change to the framework geometry.
Dr. Omar M. Yaghi at the University of California Berkeley, USA coined the term MOF in 1995. He demonstrated reticular chemistry from 2002 to 2003 which is the network building block structure of MOFs. MOFs have world record porosity and thermal stability to 300 degrees C. A collection of 100,000 MOF structures have been reported.
MOF-303 can capture water vapor from desert air during the night. When the sun heats up the material in the morning, potable water is released without the use of electricity or other equipment. MOF -101 has been used to catalyze the decomposition of crude oil and antibiotics in polluted water. UiO-67 can absorb perfluoro organic substances (PFAS) from polluted water. ZIF-8 has been used for mining rare-earth elements from wastewater. CALF-20 has an exceptional capacity to absorb carbon dioxide. NU-1501 can store and release hydrogen at normal pressure.
The future of MOF science goes from trial and error to high-throughput computational-guided rational design. 500,000 hypothetical MOFs can be screened virtually before any synthesis takes place. Artificial intelligence can take a specified target structure and generate a MOF structure. Industrial scaleup can be done for integration with carbon capture, water harvesting, and hydrogen infrastructure. Biomedical and space frontier applications are possible with MOF drug delivery for controlled release in tumor microenvironments and oxygen storage for space exploration. Flexible electronics have MOFs as wearable sensors. This was a 2025 Nobel Chemistry Prize with application potential.
With massive cuts and disruptions to federal science funding in the United States, Dr. Omar Yaghi, in July 2026, left his prestigious faculty post at the University of California to relocate to Tsinghua University in Beijing, China
2025 Nobel Prize in Physics
The Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret, and John M. Martinis for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunneling and energy quantization in an electric circuit.
Dr. Philip Sowders explained how quantum behavior can appear on a human scale: a handheld electrical circuit containing billions of copper atoms can obey rules normally observed only at the atomic level. He dedicated the presentation to the late Scientech member Dick Carter, whose knowledgeable and inspiring Nobel Prize talks established a tradition Philip continues through this discussion of macroscopic quantum mechanics. When cooled to 0.01 kelvin—just above absolute zero—the circuit exhibits quantum tunneling and quantized energy in its electric current. Researchers can apply a weak current and measure how long the circuit remains at zero voltage.
In quantum tunneling, a subatomic particle can go through a barrier wall causing voltage to appear on the other side of the barrier. Energy comes in discrete packets, and the energy was absorbed in the exact amounts matching the gaps between the allowed levels. With noise carefully reduced, quantum predictions were matched.
A qubit is the fundamental unit of quantum information. In this circuit, its two lowest energy levels represent 0 and 1. Four decades of research at the Berkeley lab culminated in the Nobel Prize in Physics. Quantum computers developed by IBM and Google must minimize noise and overcome the major challenge of maintaining extremely low temperatures.
Phil Sowders, PhD, psychologist; Alan Schmidt, PhD, chemical engineer
