Modern Alchemy with Metal Complexes Inside Cyclodextrins, The Molecular Cauldrons

Cyclodextrins are molecular capsules of adequate size to include metallo-organic guests and improve their solubility, shelf-life, and catalytic activity and recyclability, resembling the alchemist's metal-in-a-pot reactions on the molecular scale. This work reports literature examples of solid cyclodextrin inclusion compounds with metal catalysts and metallocyclodextrin catalysts, that find applications in two main and quite distinct fields, chemical reactions of industrial interest - olefin epoxidation, olefin polymerization and silicon curing (cross-linking) reactions - and biochemical reactions that mimic natural enzymes, of which artificial carbonic anhydrase and glutathione peroxidase metal-cyclodextrin compounds were successfully prepared.