RAS question
The 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded for the development of Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs). What is the key property that makes MOFs suitable for applications like water harvesting and CO2 capture?
Correct answer: (C) Vast internal surface area.
Metal-Organic Frameworks are useful for water harvesting and CO2 capture because their vast internal surface area and large cavities allow gases and other chemicals to enter, be trapped and stored.
Explanation
MOFs are built as porous molecular frameworks: metal ions act as cornerstones linked by long organic molecules, forming crystals with large cavities. The Nobel press release describes these constructions as having large spaces through which gases and other chemicals can flow, and says chemists can vary the building blocks to capture and store specific substances. That directly explains why the key MCQ property is vast internal surface area, not conductivity or resistance. The same property underpins applications named in the explanation and source, including harvesting water from desert air and capturing carbon dioxide. The page explanation also notes hydrogen storage, drug delivery and that over 100,000 MOFs have been synthesised.
Why the other options are wrong
- (A) High thermal conductivity is not the property identified in the explanation or Nobel source; the relevant advantage is porous internal space for capture and storage.
- (B) Radioactive stability is unrelated to the cited MOF applications, which depend on gases and other chemicals moving through and being stored in large cavities.
- (D) High electrical resistance does not explain water harvesting or CO2 capture; the source instead links MOF usefulness to tunable porous frameworks that can capture and store substances.
Concept
This tests the Science and Technology concept of material structure-property relationships. It recurs in RAS because current-award science questions often ask aspirants to connect a discovery with its practical environmental or energy applications.