2008/03/05: "The Association's oldest award, the AAAS Newcomb Cleveland Prize was established in 1923 with funds donated by Newcomb Cleveland of New York City. The Prize acknowledges an outstanding paper published in the Articles, Research Articles, or Reports sections of Science. Each recipient receives a bronze medal and a share of the $25,000 prize.
This paper describes the synthesis of crystalline three-dimensional frame- works of organic materials with high porosity. It had long been known that inorganic materials (such as zeolites) or organic compounds linked with metals could be made into such frameworks, but to accomplish this result with metal-free organic frameworks achieves what one reviewer described as a "holy grail" in organic materials chemistry. The authors cleverly employed a condensation reaction involving boron and oxygen to create three-dimensional structures with covalent bonding; these had the needed stability to be formed into a variety of complex, highly-ordered network structures with high porosity. The result opens up a host of new applications in materials chemistry." Annoucement, AAAS Report (p18)