Abstract
In biological system, enzymes such as methane monooxugenase and P450cam carry out efficient oxidations of small hydrocarbons under mild conditioins by efficient substrates binding in their hydrophobic cavities that exist near redox active metal centers. For the first step to make high performance artificial oxidation catalysts inspired by these enzymes, we have synthesized new capsule shaped hosts 'cavitand-porphyrin' (MCP, M=H2, Zn, Ni, Pd), and reported encapsulation of small hydrocarbonmolecules into MCP. In this paper, we show various kinetic and thermodynamic data of methane encapsulation into H2CP, 1D-NMR, 2D-EXSY experiments and MP2 calculations. We will discuss abot the encapsulation process of small hydrocarbons into H2CP based on these data.
